


A Small Problem

by Arcawolf



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: And Vanitas is just a troll, Big Brother Ven, Gen, Humor, Little Aqua & Terra, Poor Ven being run ragged by little kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-01-03 07:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 54,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcawolf/pseuds/Arcawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a certain trio has an accident involving the enigmatic Fountain of Youth, Ven finds himself in over his head. Even if his friends are suddenly smaller than him. And younger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Begins

Master Eraqus sat at his desk, sipping a cup of his favourite brand of tea. It was a beautiful, spring day with the sun shining and a few fluffy clouds lazily making their way across the sky. He turned his head away from his papers for a second, staring through the room’s wide window at the green fields and lovely flowers outside, and then returned to his work with a smile. It was one of those rare times where he was the only person present in the castle, and he was taking the time to get some work done.

He dipped his quill in the inkwell and began to write. _Report 12,_ his quill traced out. _I have sent my apprentices here today with the intention of mapping out some of the world beyond its signature port. Though I have yet to witness any for myself, I have heard rumours from the other Masters that there are many hidden, magical secrets located on this world. Between the three of them, I hope that my apprentices will be able to bring news of a few of them. Every artefact that we uncover will help us understand this mysterious world of magic._

He finished with a flourish, dropping his quill into the inkwell where it would stay. He picked the report up, neatly depositing it in the back of the folder labelled 'Plumbers' Realm', and placed that onto the bookcase that was arranged alphabetically. He adjusted the folder, making sure it fit in neatly with the others. Ah, yes, symmetry. That was always good.

Tucking his chair back into his desk, he smoothed down his clothes and left the room. It was time, he decided, for a snack. Terra was on kitchen duty and he was a good cook, but today, Ven was supposed to help him . . . he shuddered. Best to eat beforehand so he didn’t have to put himself through that much pain later.

Once in the kitchen, he naturally gravitated towards the platter of cookies Aqua had left out. True, she had told everyone not to touch them, but he was only taking one. She wouldn’t miss it.

Besides, it was a well-known fact that Aqua _always_ blamed Terra.

He returned to his desk and tea, cookie and a plate with a few other pastries in hand.  He put down the plate in front of him, taking a seat afterwards. With one hand, he picked up his teacup, and with the other, he grabbed the cookie and raised it to his mouth . . .

There was the distant sound of a door slamming.

Groaning, Eraqus put the teacup back on his desk and held his forehead instead. _One, two . . ._

“Master! Maaaaaster!”

He quickly devoured Aqua’s cookie and said, “Come in, Ventus.”

The door almost exploded from the force Ventus used to push it open. His hair seemed to be sticking up even more than usual, and he ran right up to Eraqus’ desk, hands slamming down on it. Ventus stared up at him, panting.

Eraqus quirked a brow. “Yes?”

Ventus winced as he said, “Master, we have a bit of a problem.”

“Is anyone injured?” Eraqus asked.

“No, but . . .”

“Did you all return safely?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Then it is probably not as severe a problem as you are making it out to be.”

“Actually . . .” Ventus said that slowly, as if buying time to figure out his next words. “I think it is.”

“Is it now?” Eraqus said, completely unconvinced. “Well, then summon Aqua and Terra to help you explain.”

Ventus nodded, and then looked over his shoulder. “Okay guys, you can come in.”

Folding one hand over the other, Eraqus leaned back and waited patiently. Ven had a tendency to . . . exaggerate things, but Aqua and Terra were sure to give him a much clearer picture of what was going on.

He waited patiently, and then blinked when two figures that were _much_ too short to be his students appeared in the doorway.

“Ventus, why are there children here?” he asked.

Ventus buried his head in his hands. “Look closer,” he mumbled.

Eraqus did so. He saw a young boy and girl, the former of whom couldn’t have been older than seven, while the latter was younger still. The boy was the larger one, with brown hair and blue eyes, while the girl had both blue hair and eyes. An odd combination. Aqua was the only person he knew to even have blue hair.

Oh.

His eyes widened.

The young, child-sized version of Terra stomped his foot and cried, “I blame Ven for this!”


	2. Just An Ordinary Day

Ven threw his hands up in the air as he faced down a furious Terra. “How is this my fault?”

“Because this kind of stuff is always your fault!” Terra shouted. He drew himself up to the tallest height that his seven-year old body could manage (which meant that he only came up to Ven’s midsection), and jabbed Ven in his chest with a finger. “If you hadn’t been so close to the edge, I wouldn’t have felt the need to try and pull you back!”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I fell in,” Ven said.

“You were going to! And even ignoring that, you didn’t have to move out of the way at  the _last possible second_.”

“You’re the one who pushed Aqua in!”

“Yes, because I was trying to grab _you_!”

“Guys, stop it!” Aqua put a hand on either boy’s chest, trying to push them apart. Unfortunately, being as young and tiny as she was, it did absolutely nothing.

Ven and Terra continued to bicker and at his desk, Eraqus felt the beginning of a headache. He rubbed his forehead, took a deep breath to calm himself, and wiped the stunned look off his face. “That’s enough,” he said firmly. When Ven and Terra continued to fight, he raised his voice and said, “ _Enough!_ ”

Ven and Terra stopped abruptly, staring at their Master with wide eyes. Aqua was still leaning her weight into them, trying to keep them apart, and when the two boys swiftly turned to face Eraqus, her hands slipped and she fell forwards onto the ground.

“It does not matter whose fault this is,” Eraqus said (“Does too,” Terra muttered). “Just tell me how to fix it.”

Ven and Terra glanced at each other as Aqua picked herself off the ground.

“You don’t know,” Eraqus said, half to himself. “Did you even try to find a solution?”

Ven was blushing as he stared at a spot just beyond Eraqus’ right shoulder. Terra cleared his throat, his stare glassy and vacant as he pretended he wasn’t there. So, Aqua took it upon herself to say, “No, not really. We panicked and came back here.”

Eraqus grunted, and Aqua stared at the ground, hearing his disapproval in that sound.

Terra huffed. “Whatever. This stuff will probably wear off anyways. Just postpone missions for a couple of days and then everything will be fine.”

Eraqus nodded, seeing the sense in that, but Ven said, “Terra, are you sure? I mean you guys are . . .”

“And?” Terra demanded. “So what? That doesn’t mean anything’s different.” He clapped his hands together. “Just watch: everything’s going to be perfectly normal.”

* * *

Ven watched, eyes wide with alarm, as Terra balanced haphazardly on the stool. The (formerly) eldest apprentice was busy gathering ingredients from the cabinets and with each item he reached for, he seemed to dance a little closer to the edge. Ven lunged forwards as the stool wobbled, not that Terra seemed to notice. He continued to do exactly what he was doing before, which was – as Aqua would put it – needlessly trying to cause himself harm.

“Are you sure you don’t want my help with this?” Ven asked. “I mean you’re . . .”

“Don’t say it! Don’t you dare!”

“But Terra,” he said, “it’s kind of hard to deny. I mean it’s looking me right in the face.”

“Ven, I’m warning you, don’t you dare . . .”

And despite Terra’s words, Ven did it anyways. “Terra, you’re short,” he said curtly.

“Gah!” Terra spun around quickly, nearly slapping Ven in the face. “I told you not to say that!”

“Well, at least you’re taller than Aqua. I knew never she could be that tiny.” Ven thought about that for a second, tapping his chin. “Well, she’s not that small . . . maybe frail’s the right word?”

“Look, Ven.” Since he was on the stool, Terra was currently taller than Ven – which made it a _tiny_ bit easier to take him seriously. “This doesn’t change anything, so don’t start getting ideas. Me and Aqua are still the same people; we’re still _older_ than you. Got it?”

“Yes, sir!” Ven threw himself into a perky salute. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re pretty small . . .”

“Fine! You get the ingredients.”

Ven did so, pushing Terra and his prized stool aside as he reached for the shelves. With Terra shouting instructions behind him, he located each ingredient quickly, passing them off to the boy behind him. For a while, it worked seamlessly, only a tad slower than if Terra had just fetched them himself.

Until they reached the rice.

They kept the rice in a big sack on the counter, and lifting it had always given Ven a bit of trouble. Not only was it fairly heavy, but the fluidity of the grains meant that the sack liked to mould around the arms of whomever was holding it, and just be a general bother to carry. Only for Ven, of course. As far as he knew, Aqua never had any problems with it, and Terra certainly made it clear to that he didn’t either.

At least normal, adult Terra didn’t have a problem.

Just as he had with the rest of the ingredients, Ven more tossed than passed the sack of rice behind him, and he blinked when there was a thump.

“Veeeen!” That was Terra’s voice, albeit very muffled and distorted.

“Terra, what . . .?”

Ven turned to see a giant sack of rice, and no Terra. No wait, Terra was there, but _underneath_ the rice. The sack had settled upon his body so that all Ven could see was the other boy’s flailing arms and legs. With a shout of alarm, Ven hauled the sac off of Terra, who swiftly rolled onto his stomach, panting as he propped himself up with his forearms.

“Aw, crap,” Ven mumbled. “Terra, are you okay?”

A shudder ran down his spine as Terra glared at him. “You did that on purpose,” the technically older boy growled.

“What? No, I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did.” Terra rose to his feet. “And now you’re going to pay!”

As Terra charged, Ven cringed, holding his arms up to protect his face. Terra slammed into his waist, shoving him back, but only a little. After a few stumbled steps, Ven regained his footing and was able to keep his position rather easily as Terra continued to try and push him.

“How . . . ?” Terra backed off, staring at Ven with something akin to horror. “This can’t be . . .”

Before Ven could get a word in, Terra punched the wall.

“Terra, what are you doing?!”

“There’s no hole,” Terra said in a haunted voice. “That punch should have left a hole in the wall.”

Almost unconsciously, Terra walked backwards, staring at his hands. “I don’t just look like a seven year-old, I have the strength of one, too!”

“I guess that makes sense,” Ven said, “I mean you don’t have all the muscles that you did before.”

Terra looked up at him. “So, are you saying that . . . that I’m weak?”

Ven nodded. “Looks like it.”

Terra’s anguished scream echoed throughout the castle.


	3. Distractions

The sound of sizzling meat filled Ven’s ears as he leaned against the counter, waiting. To the left of him, also on the counter, was a large knife that Terra had been using shortly before. To the right of him was the stove and its elements, upon one of which sat a frying pan with a bunch of ground beef inside. Ven yawned, his arm sliding a bit closer to the knife, which still held drops of red liquid from when it had sliced into the meat. He drummed his fingers against the counter, the tip of his pinkie touching down just a centimetre away from the knife’s edge.

He sighed, lazily looking over his shoulder for any sign of Terra. After the terrible revelation that he now had the strength of a child, Terra had tried to carry on as usual. However, things had eventually sunk in, and Terra had suddenly abandoned his kitchen duties and fled, presumably to wail about his loss in private. That left Ven with the hamburger meat. Luckily, he knew how to cook it.

. . . Well, he’d watched Terra cook it, at least. That was pretty much the same thing, wasn’t it?

His arm shifted again, coming even closer to the knife which seemed to pulse malevolently. It seemed to leer at him like a bloodthirsty beast, but of course, Ven didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to figure out whether the bit of pink in the meat meant that it was ready or not.

He had just decided it was when the kitchen door opened. Slowly. In fact, it took Aqua about ten seconds to open the surprisingly heavy door. She took one glance at the scene, at the knife that seemed to be kissing Ven’s forearm, and shouted in alarm.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t considered Ven’s reaction.

“Wah!” Ven yanked his arms back from the counter, his left one just _barely_ passing over the blade of the knife. Instead, it clipped the handle, propelling the knife up in front of his nose, after which it plunged downwards, impaling a spot next to his foot and proving that Ven was, indeed, the luckiest person ever.

Aqua ran over to him. “Ven, what do you think you’re doing?”

He glanced back at the frying pan. “Cooking?” Thinking quickly, he dumped the hamburger meat onto a plate and smiled.

His smile was not returned. “Did you even see the knife?” she demanded.

“Huh?” He looked down when she pointed at his feet. “Oh, didn’t even notice that. Terra must have forgotten it.”

She made an odd sound. “I’m going to kill him! But you should have been paying attention, too!”

“But it was Terra’s fault . . .”

“I don’t care! Someday, you’re going to be out there fighting heartless, monsters and all sorts of villains; you need to learn to watch out for yourself. Terra and I aren’t going to be there every step of the way. We’re not always going to be there to protect you, so you have to start being more observant. Understand?”

Ven smiled. “Right,” he said good-naturedly.

A beat passed, and then Aqua’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you saying it like that?”

His smiled disappeared. Quickly he wiped the image – a vision of this little Aqua waving an oversized keyblade at a crowd of heartless – that had brought it to his face. “What do you mean?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

He stared down at her and for the first time, noticed how her big blue eyes seemed to take up half her face. Her face was much rounder too, and there was something soft about her appearance, so that he suddenly had the urge to pick her up and hug her.

Aqua backed up a little. “Why are you smiling like that?”

Was he smiling? Oh, apparently he was. He tried to suppress it, but it sprung to his lips again.

Looking a tad freaked out, Aqua said, “Were you even listening to me?”

“I was, Aqua. Stop worrying. Now, I have to go finish dinner since Terra seems to be having a mental breakdown.”

Without really thinking about it, he reached down and ruffled Aqua’s hair. She squawked in indignation, staring after Ven with her mouth hanging open.

It was after that when she looked back at the stove and groaned.

Ven had left it on.


	4. Dinnertime

The silence stretched so long at the table that an observer might have thought they were all dead.

“This is the meal you have prepared for us?” Eraqus asked, poking at his pile of ground meat with his fork.

“Err, yeah,” Ven said.

“So, you are saying that we are expected to consume a meal of ground meat and cookies?” Eraqus said. (“Hey, I told you not to touch those!” Aqua exclaimed.)

Ven blushed even before he saw the faces of the others. Yes, he knew that what he had made wasn’t very impressive, but he’d done the best he could. He had tried to finish up for Terra, but how was he supposed to know that you needed water when you were cooking rice? And he didn’t even want to think about the mishap with the _other_ things; he was going to be scrubbing that kitchen for days.

“Terra, where were you during this?” the Master asked.

Terra’s head fell against the table, and Ven heard him mumble, “Clearly, not where I should have been. Ven, you weren’t supposed to serve the meat just as is . . .”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you ran off!” Ven protested. “At least give the food a try before you complain.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back and stared at them expectantly. Terra and Eraqus exchanged a wide-eyed look, their gazes afterwards turning to their filled plates, where they watched the food closely as if expecting it to leap out at them. Aqua, on the other hand, made the mistake of locking eyes with Ven. A moment passed, and then with a visible sigh, she stuck her fork into the meat and lifted some up.

Some of the colour drained from her face. “Master, I don’t think this is cooked.”

And the Master stood suddenly. “Alright, that’s it! Someone choose a world.”

“Why?” Aqua said.

Already heading out of the room, the Master answered, “Because we are going out for dinner.”

* * *

“Finally, something normal!” Terra cheered as he bounded down the steps to the castle. “Hey Ven, I bet I can beat you to Twilight Town.”

Already basking in his anticipated victory, Terra thrust his chest out and prepared to summon his armour . . .

Master Eraqus’ hand closed on his wrist, stopping him short.

“I’m afraid you and Aqua won’t be flying on your own,” he said. “You are both too young.”

“Not you, too, Master!” Terra complained. “Look, me and Aqua are perfectly normal – why can’t you guys understand that?”

“I do know that, Terra.” Eraqus patted him on the back. “The problem is that no one else does, and it is against the law for anyone under the age of ten to fly through space on their own.”

“There are _laws_?”

“Naturally.” Eraqus’ tone suggested that Terra had just asked a very stupid question. “Spaceships are not allowed to simply do as they please. Now, I do not fancy having to endure the company of Captain Gantu again, so you two will be riding with one of us.”

Terra crossed his fingers behind his back. _Please not Ven, please not Ven . . ._

“Terra, you will go with Ventus.” The Master smiled. “Think of it as punishment for leaving Ventus alone in the kitchen.”

* * *

Terra raised his glass to his lips and quickly downed its contents, slamming it onto the tabletop afterwards. Licking his lips greedily, he reached over to Aqua’s plate – the owner of which glared at him but did nothing else to stop him – and gobbled down a handful of her meal. His own plate had been emptied a long time ago, and now he was eying Ven’s meal with a passion.

“Are you going to finish that?” he asked.

Ven stared at him, mouth hanging open. “Terra, you already ordered three meals and finished them.”

Terra shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a big eater.”

“Yes, and your stomach will explode if you eat any more,” the Master said critically. He swatted Terra’s hand away from his plate. “That’s enough for you.”

Terra pouted.

“Master,” Aqua tugged on Eraqus’ sleeve, “can we go get ice cream?”

It wasn’t the question that made them all stare at her, it was the tone in which she asked it. It sounded like . . . well, it sounded like a little girl pleading with her parents for candy. Aqua did not appear to notice that all attention had focused on her; she was too busy staring at her Master.

Eraqus pinched his nose. “Fine.”

“Come on, Terra!” Aqua pulled him off his chair. “Let’s go!”

As the two miniature keybladers scampered off, Ven wailed, “What about me?”

* * *

Walking back to the restaurant where they had left Eraqus and Ven, Aqua and Terra licked their ice-cream cones. “It’s sweet, but salty,” Terra remarked. “Weird.”

“I think it tastes good,” Aqua said.

It was a bright, beautiful day, and the feel of the sun on his skin made Terra want to go run around. But he couldn’t. Oh well. There was plenty of space to run around back home, and they had to get back to the Master.

At the sound of giggling, Terra glanced sideways and found a group of girls. They looked to be in their mid-teens, and when they peeked his way and giggled again, he knew it was directed at him.

He grinned. “See that, Aqua. Looks like I’m still popular with the ladies.”

“Terra, I don’t think . . .”

He ignored her, and marched towards them. Forget everything Ven said; this was proof that everything was perfectly normal.

“Can I help you, ladies,” he asked with no small amount of swagger.

The girls broke out into giggles again, hardly able to look at him. Terra flashed a triumphant smirk back at Aqua, and then basked in the girls’ attention.

One of the girls squealed, “He’s so cute!”

His smile was replaced by horror. Wait, what?

“Are you lost, little guy?” another asked, leaning down as so to be level with him.

“What? No!”  he cried.

“Aw, I just want to ruffle his hair.”

“No! I’m not cute!” he shouted. “I’m handsome, not cute!”

“Of course you are,” a girl said, and she reached down and pinched his cheek.

“Aqua, help!”

Aqua watched and deliberated for about half a millisecond. Then she walked off and left Terra at the mercy of the girls.


	5. In the Night

There was a cloudless sky that night in the Land of Departure. The silver-white crescent of the moon dwarfed the stars that served as its backdrop, and pale light showered the land below. There, a gurgling river glimmered in response as it weaved its way through the woods and skirted the field that made up the apprentices’ sparring grounds. The grass here was just starting to recover, having finally been offered a break from the constant ravage of spells and metal boots. At the other edge of the field, opposite to the pined woods, were the steep walls of the castle, and a little more than halfway up those was the window to Terra’s room.

There were no crickets tonight, the weather being too cold. The only sound was the rustling of fabric as Terra tossed and turned. The light pouring in through his window was more than enough for him to see, but still he groped blindly as he pulled the sheets over his head.

His head emerged again a few seconds later. His hair, contrary to expectation, was far from the mess it usually was at this time, and its neat condition silently spoke of the boy’s vain attempts to sleep. Terra turned again, settling on his side, fists clenched as he struggled to ignore the coiling in the pit of his stomach.

But it was no use. Anxiety overtaking him, he lifted his head from the pillow and looked at his closet again.

The wooden object leered at him. It wasn’t big since Terra only had just enough clothes to get by, but at this age, it was _enormous_. He couldn’t open it without reaching over his head. And if it was that big, then who could say what was hiding inside it?

“Gah!” He sat up, back slumped and fists digging into his legs. “There’s nothing in there. Monsters don’t exist!”

But they did, and he knew that. He was training to fight against them, wasn’t he? And he knew what they looked like, and that they came in the night, with sharp claws and hungry yellow eyes. There could be dozens of them stuffed inside his closet right now, waiting for him to sleep so that they could come out.

He gritted his teeth when that thought made itself known and leapt off his bed, storming over to the closet. With one great heave, he pulled the doors open, squinted as he scanned the contents and confirmed that there were no monsters.

 _Just leave it open_ , he thought to himself, _then I don’t have to worry about what’s inside._

He returned to his bed, curling up in the sheets so that they encased him like a cocoon. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying –and failing – to clear his thoughts. However, the sinking feeling hadn’t faded, and only got worse with every second his eyes weren’t on that closet.

“This is ridiculous,” he growled. “There are no monsters. It’s fine, it’s _safe_ and I’m being stupid.”

But a part of him wondered, _If the closet’s open, doesn’t it make it easier for the monsters to come out and grab me?_

He sat up again, mortified by how stupid, how idiotic . . . how childish that thought was. He took a deep breath, rubbing his forehead as he tried to calm the fear building up inside of him.

For a good five minutes, he sat in silence and stared at the closet.

He needed some air. He stepped out into the hallway, smacking a fist against his temple as he tried to figure out how to make this all go away. The hallways were always lit, but he’d already tried sleeping with the door to his room open and he really didn’t fancy sleeping in the hall. Plus, he was sure to be facing some strange questions if he were caught sleeping anywhere outside his room.

He wandered down to the kitchen, following the half-hearted whims of his stomach. It was there that he found Aqua, who stared down guiltily at him from a chair.

“You’re still up?” Terra asked.

She nodded, looking away from him, but not in time to hide her slight blush.

“Can’t sleep?”

She said, “I’d forgotten how active a child’s imagination can be.”

He heard what she was really saying in that sentence and empathised. “You too, huh?”

She blinked at his admission, and then some of the tension seemed to roll off her shoulders. “Yeah,” she whispered.

He thought for a few moments before saying, “I bet it wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t alone.”

Her eyes widened. “Terra, are you suggesting that . . .?”

“We’re technically kids,” he pointed out. “No one cares if two kids just happen to sleep in the same bed. I mean, my bed’s pretty huge – it was even before this happened. We could make a barrier or something, or I could sleep on the floor. Your choice.”

“Terra, I am not kicking you out of your own bed.”

“Then we’ll make a barrier. Come on Aqua, it’s not that big a deal.” _And I don’t want to be alone_ , he wanted to say, but his pride stopped him.

Aqua sighed. “Fine, but we’re not telling anyone.”

* * *

For once, Ven woke at the crack of dawn. Not because he wanted to, but because Eraqus needed some stuff moved, and Ven was now the only person big enough to help.

“Can’t we do this later?” Ven asked.

“No,” Eraqus said. “Terra does not need to think that he is useless on top of everything else.”

Ven groaned, and continued to push the sofa.

“A few more inches,” Eraqus told him, as he admired it from a distance. “Just a little more . . . Ah! Perfect.”

“Why did this need to be moved anyways?” Ven gasped.

Eraqus waved his question away. “I was tired of how things looked before. Now, seeing as Terra and Aqua are still asleep, l suppose that I will be the one preparing breakfast . . . it is strange that they are not up yet.”

“You don’t think the spell did anything, do you?” Ven asked in alarm.

“I doubt it, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. Ventus, if you would?”

Ven nodded, happy to be removed from his job as furniture-mover. He ran all the way to Terra’s room, and hammered on the door. That’s what he meant to do, at least. But Terra’s door turned out to not actually be closed (which made him worry more), and opened with the first knock.

“Terra?” Ven stepped inside, gaze focusing on the bed. Terra was there, staring at him with wide eyes, and someone stirred on the other side of what appeared to be a wall of pillows.

“Aqua?” Ven said in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“She was . . . we were. . . talking!” Terra offered.

Ven frowned. “In your bed?”

“Uh, yeah . . . we were talking about . . . about how soft my mattress is!” Terra punched said mattress. “See, isn’t it soft, Aqua?”

“Yes, very soft,” Aqua agreed.

A suspicious silence followed. “Right,” Ven said. “I’ll just be going now.”

He ran out of the room and Aqua turned to Terra, saying, “He’s going to tell Master, isn’t he?”

Terra nodded and Aqua buried her head in her hands.


	6. The Truth Hurts

“Terra, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

Terra ignored Ven, who was reluctantly trailing behind him. “Of course it is,” the physically (but not actually, darn it!) younger boy said. “We don’t know how long this spell’s going to last, and there’s no way I’m letting Aqua get ahead of me.”

“Terra, she’s not training either.”

“How do you know that?” He spun around, hands spread wide. “Maybe she’s secretly cooking up some weird spells while we’re not looking.”

“Terra –”

“Anyways,” Terra interrupted, “I’m going to train, and you are going to help me.”

“Just think for a second!” Ven summoned Wayward Wind, and planted it upright against the floor next to Terra. “Look, my keyblade’s pretty much the same size you are! How am I going to spar with you?”

“By holding back a bit, duh.” Terra rolled his eyes. “Kingdom Hearts knows that I do it enough for you.”

“You . . . wait, what?”

Terra smirked and then pushed open the doors to the training grounds. Light blinded them for an instant, and then faded to reveal the field of swaying grass and the smooth ground upon which they would fight. Terra took a deep breath, revelling in the sweet scent of the outside world, and then bounded down the stairs, stopping at the bottom and looking at Ven expectantly.

 _I’m going to regret this_ , Ven thought as he followed after Terra.

“Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?” Ven asked one last time.

“I’m sure. Now, prepare to have your butt kicked!”

Ven didn’t even react to Terra’s threatening pose. The fierce smirk Terra had tried to paste on his face didn’t work at his age; it just made him look like he was in pain.

“Fine,” Ven said, “but when Eraqus asks, this was completely your idea.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s go!”

Ven took up his keyblade, rotating it slowly in his reverse grip. He was really worried about this. In all his experience, he’d never had to hold back on his friends before; they’d always been much stronger than him. He wasn’t sure he knew how to hold back. Plus, by how much was he expected to dampen his blows? Terra was tiny, even by his standards.

“Okay,” Ven said regretfully, “I’m ready when you are.”

Terra grinned. His arm snapped out to the side, where . . . nothing happened. Birds circled above them as Ven waited for Terra to summon Earthshaker. Ven shifted from foot to foot, let his keyblade droop a little.

“So, have you changed your mind?” he asked hopefully.

Terra didn’t answer. The boy appeared frozen in time, and Ven glanced around quickly to make sure no one had cast a Stop spell on him.

“Terra?”

Terra jerked suddenly. His open hand drifted back towards him and stopped in front of his chest, where he stared at it. The hand curled closed and then opened again, the action doing nothing to lessen the terror spreading across his face.

“M-my keyblade.” His hand snapped closed again. “It’s not answering.”

“Maybe you’re too young,” Ven suggested.

“No! I had my keyblade at this age!” Terra stumbled backwards. “I can feel it, but it’s stuck or something.”

Terra then started to move in a wild pattern of flailing and twitchy movements. It would have been humourous, if it wasn’t for the very real desperation radiating from the boy.

“Come on . . . no! Why aren’t you answering? I’m summoning you . . . why . . . ? Okay, one last time . . . okay, maybe this time . . . I can feel you, so why won’t you. . . W _hy won’t you come?_ ”

Terra fell to his knees, arms still outstretched as he tried to summon his beloved Earthshaker. “No,” he murmured over and over again. His hair cast shadows over his face, but Ven was sure he saw tears in the corner of his eyes. Terra had one hand over his heart now, gripping his shirt tightly. The other was pressed against the ground, the only thing keeping him upright.

Ven approached. “Terra . . .”

In a flash, Terra lunged at him, screaming, “This is _your_ fault!”

 The first punch flew straight into Ven’s stomach, winding him, but otherwise, not hurting much. Terra’s swings were clumsy, slow and much too easy to defend against. Ven ended up grabbing the other boy’s wrists, and Terra growled as he fought to free himself.

“Terra, stop! Just calm down for a second.”

Terra did so, slumping against Ven as he panted. His face was pointed downwards, so that Ven couldn’t see his expression. Warily, as if dealing with a frightened animal, Ven placed his hands on Terra’s shoulders.

“Terra . . .”

Terra threw his hands off and ran.

* * *

Ven found him later at the Summit with Aqua. If the desolate look on her face was anything to go by, she had discovered the same truth that Terra had. Her blue eyes were trained on her knees, which she hugged close to her chest. Nearby, Terra stared off into the distance, though he looked back when Ven arrived.

Terra sighed heavily. “Hey, Ven.”

“Hey,” Ven said without any real emotion.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened. I was acting like a child there; I don’t know what came over me.”

Ven waved off Terra’s apology. “It’s fine, no hard feelings. This is kind of my fault, after all.”

Terra’s expression hardened. “No, what happened was an accident. It’s nobody’s fault.”

Ven nodded. “So . . . you guys still up for training?”

Aqua flinched, but she said nothing. So it was Terra who spat, “We don’t exactly have our keyblades anymore, remember?”

“I know,” Ven said, “but I thought that you guys could use this.”

Up to now, Ven had been keeping his hands behind his back. But now he revealed them, and the fact that they were holding the wooden keyblade Terra had once given to him. Ven’s name had originally been scratched into the handle, but before he’d come here, he’d taken the initiative to add the names of his friends as well. He held the keyblade out to them, dropping to one knee on instinct.

“You’ll have to take turns and we’ll have to be careful not to break it,” he said, “but it should be good enough for a spar. What do you say?”

Terra and Aqua stared at the wooden keyblade, then at him. Ven smiled, trying to hide his anxiety as he waited for their reactions.

Terra acted first, reaching out and closing his hand around the handle. He lifted the keyblade delicately, as if it would break with any sudden movement. He tipped it towards Aqua, who took it from him.

“So, what do you guys say?” Ven asked.

Terra and Aqua stared at him.

Then, to his great surprise, they hugged him.


	7. The Joys of Chocolate

Alone in the dining room, Aqua was sitting on a chair at the table – or more accurately, sitting on a pile of books on the chair so that she could actually reach the tabletop. It had been a hassle bringing the books here in the first place, given that they were all thick and heavy tomes. Thankfully though, while in the castle’s library, Ven had come by and she had sweet-talked him into carrying them for her. He’d stuck around for a bit after that to help her look through them, but before long, Terra dragged him outside to spar. So that left Aqua by herself, and she frowned in concentration as she flipped through the pages.

She closed the book she had been looking at and pushed it aside. Once again, she had found no help. The book joined a pile of its peers which combined, towered over the sitting Aqua. Yet for all the dozens of pages she had skimmed through, not a single one had information on the dilemma she and Terra were in. At least, no information that was relevant to them.

She leaned back and rubbed her eyes, facts and theories echoing in her ears. _The spell wears off within a few hours,_ one had claimed, but that couldn’t be true because it had been days now and they still weren’t better. She suspected that there were multiple versions of this spell.

Anyways, her head was hurting and her stomach starting to growl, so she hopped down from the chair and walked into the kitchen. There she pried the fridge’s door open and browsed through it.

As Keybladers, they had to be in tip-top shape. She, Terra and Ven had been brought up on a mostly healthy diet and thus, by habit, her eyes turned towards a plate of sliced vegetables. Well, relatively speaking, they were sliced. Earlier, Ven had tried to cut them up for lunch, but apparently it had never occurred to him to trying using a knife rather than his keyblade. So it was no surprise that the vegetables had been divided into large, very flat, pieces.

She returned to the chair and leaned back in it, munching on a slab of carrot. She frowned and as she continued to chew, that frown only grew. There was something . . . missing, but she couldn’t explain what. Nor could she explain why these carrots seemed to taste so unappealing (because really, they didn’t taste like anything).

 _Maybe these need some dip_ , she thought. The carrots tasted a bit gross, but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t hungry.

She’d only walked into the kitchen when something abruptly snatched her mind’s focus. A heartbeat passed before she even realized she was staring at the cookie jar on top of the fridge. The cookie jar, which was sure to be filled with wonderful, delicious . . .

She shook her head. No, she didn’t need any right now. Besides, it was way too high for her to reach anyways (originally they had placed it up there to keep it away from Ven. It had worked for about two seconds). Still, the thought of the cookies stayed with her, though that was usual. After all, the cookie jar had been bought for her and Eraqus; Terra wasn’t so interested in sweets, and while Ven had gone nuts over them before, he’d settled down with time.

Yet even when she had the dip at hand, she couldn’t stop thinking about how great it would be to be eating a warm, gooey, chocolate cookie . . .

She flipped the page of her current book with more force than she needed.

And though she was alone in the kitchen with nothing more than a pile of dusty books, dip and some vegetables, she kept smelling chocolate; and when she smacked her lips, it was that which she tasted. Her stomach growled, and the act of forcing carrots down her throat seemed to only make her hunger worse.

She swallowed down the craving with effort. But still it lingered, lurking at the back of her mind like a tiger waiting to pounce. It was only after she realized that she’d just read the same line seven times that she decided she had a problem.

“Okay, just one,” she said aloud.

She thought her mind cheered.

Of course, getting a cookie was easier said than done. The cookie jar was perched on the fridge, which was several times taller than she was. Jumping did little to help, and even when she pulled a chair up, she was still much too short.

She clenched her jaw. This wasn’t going to stop her. By the life of her, she was going to get up there, grab that cookie jar, and then _eat them all_.

“I’m just having one,” she reminded herself.

There was a sigh in the back of her mind.

With the chair to give her height, she scrambled onto the countertop, which halved the distance she needed to get on top of the fridge. But she was still too short; even when she took a running start and leaped, she ended up dangling by her fingertips.

Oh no. She wanted those cookies, and she was going to get them!

Using all of her youthful energy, she hauled herself onto the fridge. _Yes, success!_ Hunching over the jar possessively, she hugged it to her chest, and took a deep breath. It smelt exactly as she imagined: of chocolate and general deliciousness. Licking her lips, she grabbed one and lifted it to her mouth.

She ate it slowly, savouring the taste. And when it was gone, she automatically reached for another. Before she could remember that she was only supposed to have one, she had already stuffed it in her mouth.

By the time someone caught her, she was on her fifth.

“Aqua,” Master Eraqus asked, “what are you doing?”

Aqua froze mid-bite. “I, uh, wanted a cookie?”

Eraqus didn’t react to that. “How did you get up there?”

“I . . . climbed.” This was only getting worse.

Now, he reacted. “On your own?” Eraqus demanded. “Aqua, you could have hurt yourself! You have to remember that your body is now as fragile as a five year-old.”

“I wanted a cookie,” she repeated plaintively.

Eraqus picked her up and set her back on the floor. “Then you should have asked Ventus or me to take it down for you.” By chance, he happened to glance into the jar, and he started. “How many of them did you eat?”

“I don’t know.”

A pause. “I think I have to move this, then.”

“But Master . . .”

“No, you’ve had enough,” he said firmly. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

Her eyes grew wide. “So, I can’t have any more cookies ever?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Aqua.” Taking the cookie jar into his possession, Eraqus offhandedly said, “Don’t you remember what happened when Ventus ate himself sick? If I recall, you were the one who carried him to his bed.”

Aqua shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“It was you, Aqua. It couldn’t have been myself because I was off-world, and it couldn’t have been Terra because he was busy cleaning up after Ventus puked on him.”

And Aqua was completely genuine as she said. “But I can’t carry him. He’s big and older than me.”

Eraqus looked down at her, his eyebrows rising. “This was before the fountain, Aqua.”

She cocked her head. “What fountain?”

“The Fountain of Youth. The reason you were deaged,” he prompted when she continued to stare at him.

The memories came to her slowly; searching through them was like walking through a haze. “Oh, yes.” She forced her lips into a smile. “Sorry, I was a bit confused there.”

Eraqus frowned. “Aqua, is something wrong?”

She hesitated. “No, everything’s fine,” she finally lied.


	8. Through the Grapevine

The sun was high, and the woods brightly lit, but that didn’t matter to the masked boy. No, he seemed to radiate his own shadows, and it was within those that he hid from prying eyes. So it was that he made his way through the trees unseen, sitting on this branch and that like a predator waiting for some unfortunate soul to pass under its branch. The great white castle was reflected in his mask as he neared the edge of the woods, and he slid down the tree trunk, ducking into a shadow afterwards.

Now, where was Ventus? Vanitas’ yellow eyes scanned the empty grounds before him. From past experience, he knew that the apprentices were usually out training at this time. However, today there was no sign that they’d even been outside. Strange.

Vanitas scoffed. Naturally, the one day they would skip training would be the day he came to spy on them. Such luck seemed to be the way of his life; foremost was the fact that he even needed that loser in the first place, but then there was the fact that he was saddled with _Xehanort_ as a Master. It seemed that for whatever reason, Lady Luck hated him.

But that was okay, he didn’t need her anyways.

Ventus’ voice came to him on the wind, high-pitched and full of alarm. Oh, that sounded interesting.

He swiftly teleported onto one of the castle’s spires, perching on the very tip. Cocking his head to one side, he searched the grounds below him, finally spotting Ventus in the front yard of the castle. He hoped it was Ventus, at least; at this distance it was hard to tell. There were two other tiny dots scampering around the yard, and he figured that they were Ventus’ friends.

He teleported off the spire, instead finding a balcony that gave him a better view. Taking advantage of a convenient lounge chair, he wriggled around in it until he was comfortable, and then turned so he could access how strong Ventus was . . .

Wait, hold on a second. Who were those children with him . . .?

Wait, what?

What?

Whaaaat?

He didn’t even realize he had crawled up to the edge of his chair. Did Ventus’ friends have siblings or something?

He’d almost decided that was the case, when Ven suddenly shouted, “Terra, get down from there!”

Okay . . . this was weird. He needed a closer look. Of course, he needed to get a closer look without Ventus seeing him. Patiently, he watched as Ventus alternatively chased after Aqua and Terra, who seemed to think that they were playing a version of tag. Ven had just launched himself at a tree, trying to reach Terra who was well on his way to the top, when Vanitas noticed Aqua was a fair distance away from the other two.

He smirked. Target locked.

He teleported himself to the woods, and then released an unversed. The flood shook itself before obediently waddling over to where Aqua was plucking the petals off flowers. The second Aqua noticed the unversed, she crawled towards it, and it lured her into the woods while elsewhere, Ventus continued to climb after Terra.

As she passed in front of the spot where Vanitas was hidden, he clamped a hand on her shoulder, hissing, “Got you.”

Aqua shrieked and immediately, he let go of her and held his hands up. Okay, that had been a really, really bad idea. He waited for a few seconds, listening to see if Ventus would come running, but apparently his other half hadn’t heard anything. He smirked; Ventus was a terrible babysitter.

“Sorry,” he said to Aqua in a not-very-sincere voice, “didn’t mean to scare you.”

Aqua didn’t answer, instead glancing at the flood that was now sitting on his shoulder.

“What’s your name?”

“Aqua.”

So, this really was Aqua. That meant the other kid must have been Terra. He snickered; Xehanort was going to throw a fit.

“Why are you so small?” he asked.

She frowned. “Master says I’ll get taller when I’m older.”

He rephrased his question. “Why are you so young?”

“I’m not that young. I’m five and a half!”

Aqua couldn’t tell, but behind his mask, his eyes narrowed dangerously. “I’m positive you were older at some point, Aqua.”

Her brow furrowed in concentration. “I . . . I don’t . . . wait, there was a fountain . . .”

He knew exactly when she remembered, because that was when her eyes lit up in fear.

She took a step back. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

He grabbed her arm before she could run, pulling her close so that he towered over her. “What that’s about a fountain, Aqua?”

She immediately screamed for Ventus, and if the responding shouts were anything to go by, this time he had heard her. Vanitas dropped her arm and fled into a portal, tumbling out on another world in front of Master Xehanort.

“Well?” Xehanort demanded.

Vanitas laughed. “You are not going to like this . . .”


	9. Questioning

Exactly what the tipping point was, or that is to say the figurative straw on the camel’s back, Terra was unable to say. It had all happened quite suddenly.

It had been evening, and the bottom of the sun was just touching the horizon, when Eraqus came to fetch him. He had told Terra that it was getting late out, and it was time for him to come back inside. A reasonable request, it had been, even more so considering Terra’s circumstances and that he was the only one outside (Ven had taken Aqua back inside earlier after she starting shrieking about monsters in the woods). Now, normally, Terra would have reasonably agreed and gone inside for the night. But this time? He completely lost it.

“I don’t wanna go inside!” he screeched, trying to pull away from the Master’s firm grip on his arm.

“Terra, you are being ridiculous!” Eraqus snapped. “You are coming inside, now.”

“No!”

He beat at Eraqus’ arm with his free fist, growling as he tried to free himself. All his weight had been invested into his efforts to escape, so that if the Master had suddenly let go, Terra would have fallen flat on his face.

“Terra, stop this at once!” Eraqus spoke over Terra’s wails. “I will not tell you again: it is time for you to come inside.”

“No!” Somehow, Terra stretched that word into two syllables.

Grasping at the first solution that came to mind, Terra leapt at Eraqus, catching the Master by surprise, and sunk his teeth into his wrist. Crude, but effective. At once, Eraqus let go, uttering a harsh sound of surprise, and Terra took off.

“Terra, get back here!” Eraqus bellowed.

“No, I’m not going inside!”

He found his favourite tree – the same one Ven had chased him up earlier that day – and clambered up the trunk. By the time Eraqus regained himself and caught up, Terra was on the third branch. He stuck his tongue out at the old Master, and climbed higher.

“Terra, get down this instant!”

“No!”

Terra pried a pinecone off the tree, and lobbed it at his Master. It bounced off Eraqus’ head with a flourish, and he raised a hand to touch the spot.

“I’m never coming down!” Terra declared. “You can’t make me.”

“For Light’s sake,” Eraqus muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Terra, I am giving you to the count of three. One.”

“I don’t care; I’m not coming down!”

“Two.”

“I don’t care,” Terra sang.

“Three . . .”

“Ha ha, you lose.” Eyes closed and arms crossed behind his head, Terra leaned against the tree trunk.

“Terra, get down here right now!”

“I’m not –”

And Eraqus finally lost his patience. “ _Stop acting like a child!_ ”

Terra’s eyes snapped open. Abruptly, as if someone had poured a bucket of ice-water over his head, the heat of his anger faded. It was still there, but distant, buried under a layer of his common-sense – under his _maturity_.

 _What the hell was that?_ he thought. He peeked over the branch at Eraqus, who looked like he was getting ready to chop the tree down and be done with it. Timidly, Terra made his way back down the trunk and approached his Master, head bowed like a scolded dog.

“What was that about?” Eraqus demanded, echoing Terra’s mind.

Terra flinched. “Sorry,” he murmured.

Some of the anger left his Master’s face. It appeared that Eraqus noticed the difference between this Terra and the one he had just been dealing with, that he recognized that the Terra who had defied him was not the one standing before him now. “Terra,” he began cautiously, “what happened?”

“I don’t know!” Terra exclaimed. “I don’t . . . I . . . argh!”

As Terra beat at his temples, Eraqus sighed. “Come, let’s go inside.”

A hand on his back, Eraqus led Terra back into the castle and up to his room, where he was left in silence. Terra collapsed on his bed, groaning into his pillow as the previous events played in his mind.

 _Did I . . . did I have a frigging meltdown?_ He wanted to phrase it a different way because a meltdown was such a childish thing, but there really was no other way to describe it. Before, when he had been consumed by his temper, going inside had felt like the end of the world. Now the entire tantrum was just embarrassing.

He threw the pillow off his face. “Come on, Terra,” he mumbled. “Pull it together.”

He rolled over onto his stomach. It was mortifying to think that Eraqus had been the one to witness that; where was Ven when he needed him? But no more, this would the end of that kind of behaviour. Terra was an adult, and he knew that.

So why did these things keep happening?

He bit his lip. Sure, nothing had been as extreme as this meltdown, but still, he kept acting like a kid instead of his actual age – Aqua, too. It was frustrating because he knew how he should be behaving, knew he was an adult, and yet he kept acting like he was seven. Plus, the Master and Ven, particularly Ven, kept treating him like a kid too!

And it was with that thought that doubt finally snuck in.

_What if I’m not actually an adult? What if . . . what if I’m wrong?_


	10. A Letter to Xehanort

“Please Master, just for a moment or two? I just want a bit of peace!”

While Ventus pleaded with him, Master Eraqus didn’t look up from the letter he was writing. He didn’t understand how, but somehow Xehanort had learned of his apprentices’ dilemma, and the old Master was quite intrigued, if his letter to Eraqus was anything to go by. Given their past history, Eraqus normally wouldn’t have been interested in sharing this type of information with Xehanort, but Xehanort was an adept mage, and Eraqus’s investigations into this problem weren’t going anywhere.

“Ventus, you do not have to be with Terra and Aqua every waking moment. If you want some time alone, take it.”

“But what if they get into trouble when I’m not there?” While saying this, Ventus’s chin had been resting on Eraqus’s desk, and a shadow of his signature puppy-dog eyes were coming to light. “Then what?”

Eraqus paused in his writing. “You speak as if they were actually children.”

“Aren’t they?” Ventus said. “They certainly act like them.”

“I will admit that there are some irregularities in their behaviours, but they behave themselves if you give them a little reminder of whom they actually are. I would go out on a limb and say that much of their immature behaviour is a subtle way of seeking revenge on you.”

“I didn’t misbehave that much,” Ventus muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.  Sighing, he said again, “Can you please watch them for a few moments?”

Eraqus waved him off. “Send them in.”

Ventuss beamed and skipped out of the room, fetching his two friends who evidently had been hiding just outside. They filed in peacefully, just as Eraqus had expected, and stood awkwardly in the center of the room. Terra soon found a chair and fell into it, foot tapping on the ground impatiently. Aqua waddled up to Eraqus’ shoulder, and stood on her tiptoes as she tried to see what he was doing.

“Are you making a story?” she asked.

Not really paying attention to her question, Eraqus made a sound of affirmation.

“What’s it called?”

“A Letter to Xehanort,” he said.

Aqua scrunched up her face. “That’s a weird name.”

Terra then decided to put his two cents in. “Master, I’m hungry.”

“You are always hungry, Terra,” Eraqus said.

Terra gave Aqua a meaningful look, and she immediately glanced at her Master and declared, “I’m hungry, too!”

Eraqus put his quill down. “Very well, I will prepare something. You two _stay here_.”

Eraqus stood up, walked to the doorway and glanced back. Aqua and Terra were looking at him innocently, a little too innocently, if you asked him. Still, they were really adults, not children. He was confident they would behave themselves.

Eraqus left, and Aqua immediately jumped onto his desk, pulling the letter towards her. Her eyes scanning over the lines, she mouthed words to herself, and then scowled.

“What’s it say?” Aqua demanded, waving the letter at Terra.

“Aqua,” he said, “we shouldn’t be looking through the Master’s notes.”

“But I want to know!” she cried.

“Aqua . . .”

“I want to know!”

He groaned. Surely, there couldn’t be any harm in humouring her. At her urging, he took the letter from her and began to read aloud. Mostly, it was about them and everything Eraqus had learned about their little problem – which wasn’t much. Through this all, Aqua sat entranced, eyes shining.

At least until she asked, “Where’s the pictures?”

“Sorry, what?”

“The pictures,” Aqua repeated. “Where are they?”

“Aqua, you’re way too old to be asking for picture books.”

“Nuh-uh. I’m only five and a half,” she stated proudly.

“. . . Right.”

She shot across the desk, sitting neatly in on the edge like a queen on her throne. Terra cleared his throat, not liking the fact that she, even artificially, was taller than him.

“Can we just forget about this?” Terra asked.

Aqua shook her head sternly. “I want pictures.”

“Well, there are none, so go make your own!”

He realized what he said a moment after it left his mouth. Aqua’s face immediately brightened, and she crawled across the desk, snatching Eraqus’s dripping quill up. Her eyes then fixed upon a sheet of blank paper.

“Seriously, Aqua?” He put his hands on the desk and peered up at her. “You’re really doing this?”

“Yep,” she said happily.

“Master’s going to kill you. He doesn’t care that you’ve taken a dip in the Fountain, just -”

“What fountain?”

“The Fountain of Youth,” he clarified. “You know, the reason all of this started.”

She stared at him, confused. “What fountain?”

Terra blinked, a strange emotion flickering in his eyes. Aqua turned back to her paper and biting her bottom lip, began her masterpiece.

“Fine!” Terra threw his hands up. “Go ahead, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Terra stormed back to his seat and threw himself into it, arms knotted tightly and glaring at a spot on the floor. Aqua started to hum.

The minutes ticked by.

“What are you drawing?” a very bored Terra asked Aqua.

“Xehanort,” she answered.

Against his better judgement, Terra climbed onto the desk and peeked over her shoulder. The second he made sense of the drawing, it became apparent that Aqua had no idea what Xehanort looked like. The man she was drawing looked a lot like Eraqus, actually. Plus, her drawing of Xehanort had hair, and that was definitely not realistic.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Terra told her.

“Am not!”

“Yes, you are. I’ve met Xehanort before.”

“Then you draw him!” She thrust the quill into his hands.

Terra stared down at it, then at her, then at the papers before him. Common sense told him that he really shouldn’t be doing this, but Aqua’s eyes said differently . . . wait, was that . . . was that Ven’s puppy-dog eyes?

Indeed it was. Aqua’s eyes had grown big and wide, so that they seemed to take over her face. And in their depths, he could see the tears that would fall if he would refuse. Wait, what was he thinking? They were adults, she wouldn’t cry over this!

 _Are we?_ A traitorious voice in his mind whispered. His head ached with indecision.

He looked down at her. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt to humour her. Just this once.

He picked up the quill and began to draw.

“Xehanort’s bald,” he told her. “See?”

On the drawing he drew a quick arrow pointing at Xehanort’s head, complete with the label ‘Bald’.

“And he slouches, and he has yellow eyes – like a lizard!”

Eyes were added, with slits as their pupils. Slouching was harder to draw and Xehanort ended up looking like a hunchback. But whatever; it got the point across.

Terra grinned. “I think he has pointy ears too, and a beard or something, and he’s always smirking. So I’ll add those.”

And he did.

“His smile looks evil,” Aqua pointed out.

“He’s not smiling; he’s _smirking_.” Terra spoke that in a way that suggested Aqua had just called a cat a dragon. “If he was evil, he’d have horns like this!” Terra drew them to illustrate his point.

“Now he looks like a goat!” Aqua complained.

Between the horns and the weird beard, she was kind of right. So Terra said, “Then I’ll give him a moustache!”

For a couple more minutes, they continued to add details. Then, holding his masterpiece up high, Terra displayed the official picture of Xehanort. Before their Master could come back, he stuffed it into the folder addressed to Xehanort, and hopped back onto the floor, Aqua following.

By the time Eraqus returned, Terra and Aqua were in their seats again.

“Lunch is in the dining room,” he told them to their great delight. They cheered and ran off, Eraqus chuckling fondly as he watched.

“I knew they wouldn’t be any trouble,” he said to himself, placing his finished letter inside the folder addressed to his friend. He sealed it closed without a second glance, then set off to mail it.

* * *

Vanitas shuffled through the mail, throwing away the many advertisements for weapons of mass destruction or the many letters from quacks claiming to be in mental contact with Kingdom Hearts. He’d almost tossed away the last one too, when he saw who had written it. Clutching it loosely in his hand, he walked up to the door of his Master and hammered on the door.

“Enter,” Xehanort grunted.

Vanitas did so, carelessly blasting the door open with darkness. “Letter from Eraqus,” he said, throwing it onto his Master’s desk.

“Finally,” Xehanort muttered, and he tore the folder open. He shuffled through the papers quickly, freezing at the sight of the last one.

“Bad news?” Vanitas asked, arms crossed behind his head. He strolled behind his Master’s desk, so that he could have a look at whatever . . .

Oh.

Oh my.

“Bwah hahahah!” Vanitas nearly fell to his knees with laughter, and his finger was pointed mockingly at Xehanort as he snickered, “That’s supposed to be you?”

Xehanort didn’t answer, speechless.

“Oh, cheer up.” Vanitas slapped his Master on the back. “I think it’s a pretty accurate representation. Look, they even signed it.”

Xehanort snarled, darkness flaring up around him. “Destroy it!” he demanded, shoving the portrait of himself into Vanitas’ chest.

“Sure thing, Master.”

With a snap of his fingers Vanitas he teleported back up to his room. With no hesitation, he taped the picture up on his wall.

There was no way he was ever destroying this.

* * *

“Do you understand your mission?” Xehanort asked.

The chief of the kindergarteners scratched his chin, his staff – a crummy metre stick – smacking on the ground. “Big Person wants us to draw?”

“Not just draw,” Xehanort said, “but draw this man.” From his pocket, he took out a picture of Eraqus. “Now, do we have an understanding?”

The chief’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, then he clapped his hands and the rest of the kindergarteners took up their weapons – crayons and papers – and did as Xehanort had asked.

Xehanort smirked as he saw the army of unflattering pictures being made of his former friend. If Eraqus wanted to play this game, then he’d better be prepared to lose.


	11. Decision

Terra lay alone on his bedroom’s floor, feet kicking at the air as he tried to sort things out in his mind. Around him lay the clothes that had once been used to dress his adult self. Now, however, they were much too big; he could have used them for a sleeping bag, had he wanted.

He sucked on a lollipop (a treat Ven had brought back for him and Aqua when he went off-world), and looked around guiltily. He liked this lollipop; it had a sweet, sugary taste to it, and a faint tinge of grape. He’d already spent the last few minutes sucking away at the candy, and in the back of his mind, sadness lurked over the fact that soon it would be done.

Without a second thought, he took the lollipop out of his mouth and threw it across the room.

It stuck on a wall, and Terra slammed his fists against the ground in frustration. Sure, now he loved the sweetness of the candy, but his memories of adult Terra told him that he didn’t like lollipops. They told him lots of things that didn’t seem to be true.

“Who am I?” he said aloud. He was answered by the buzzing of a fly.

Terra automatically raised a hand, intending to strike the insect down with Fire. But the magic he knew he had refused to come, and the fly zipped out of his room unscathed. A good thing, too, because Terra realized that had his spell actually worked, he probably would have set his room on fire.

He snorted. Surely, smart, adult Terra wouldn’t have tried to do something that stupid. So what did that make him? Not-Terra? Terra 2.0? He didn’t know anymore. It was almost like there were two of him, and they were constantly trying to grapple the other into submission.

This was getting to be too much for him; he could hardly make sense of his own thoughts. He stood up, mouth opening in a huge yawn as he stretched. Though Terra had his pride, he also knew when he was beaten. This wasn’t something he could solve alone.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure whether Eraqus or Ven would really help him, or tell him what they thought he wanted to hear. While Eraqus was better about it, Ven tended to act as if Terra was a child, only to insist that Terra was really an adult. It made his head spin, it did.

That left one person, and now that he thought about it, it really was the best choice. After all, there was only one other person going through what he was . . .

“Aqua!” He walked into her room without knocking. From underneath her blanket, Aqua peered out at him, rubbing her eyes.

For a moment, his earlier troubles were forgotten in place of scolding. “You’re not supposed to be sleeping this early,” he told her.

Aqua mumbled something and then burrowed back into her sheets.

“Hey, stop sleeping!” He sprang on the lump under the blankets, hearing her squeal in surprise. “I wanna talk to you.”

“Go away,” Aqua said.

“No, we’re talking, now!”

He reached up to the top of the covers, and then ripped them off. Aqua protested loudly, crawling towards her crumpled sheets, and Terra pounced. His weight flattened her, and she clawed at the bed in an effort to gain some purchase.

“Stop moving!” he whined, trying to pin her arms down. Aqua growled, and managed to twist her body around so that they faced each other while he straddled her waist. It didn’t even occur to him how awkward this position would be if they were older.

“Got you!” he cried as he grabbed Aqua’s wrists. “Start talking.”

“I don’t even know what we’re talking about!” she complained.

“The Fountain, duh.” Terra let go of one of her arms so that he could point his finger at her. “Now, start talking.”

She cocked her head. “What fountain?”

“You know, that Fountain – the Fountain of Youth. The reason we’re children again?”

Aqua blinked. “I’ve always been a kid,” she claimed. “Master says I won’t be a grownup for a really long time.”

“No, we were adults!” Terra shook her to her evident displeasure. “We fell into a fountain, and then it deaged us.”

“I . . .” Her eyes seemed to cloud over for a second before clearing up again. “No, we didn’t,” she said. “Were you dreaming?”

“It wasn’t a dream! There was a fountain, and we fell in!”

“No, there wasn’t.”

“Yes, there was!”

“Stop yelling at me!”

Aqua’s bottom lip began to tremble, and Terra hurriedly jumped off her, recognizing the signs. Aqua curled into a little ball, hiding her face from him as she sniffed. No. No no no. He didn’t want her to cry.

“I didn’t mean it,” he said. “I’m not mad at you.”

Aqua uncurled a little, and he could see a tear in the corner of her eye.

“I wasn’t yelling at you. I’m not mad, promise.”

He stuck out his pinkie, and hooked it underneath Aqua’s, locking them together. Aqua sniffled, but the crisis appeared to be over, and she uncurled completely.

Terra said, “So, there was no fountain.”

Aqua shook her head.

He sat back, legs tucked beneath him. If there was no fountain, then that meant there was no deaging. That meant he had never been an adult, after all. Did that make all those memories a dream then, or a fantasy?

Whatever they were, they weren’t real.

“I’m a kid,” he said aloud, and a great weight seemed to be lifted off his shoulders. “I’m a kid!”

He said that one last time, this time with certainty and with a snap, the last string tying him to adulthood broke.


	12. Shopping Time

Rubbing his aching head, Ven crossed off another day on his calendar. It had been a week now since the ‘Fountain Incident’ as Master Eraqus had deemed it, and things weren’t any better. Oh no, Ven only had to glance out into the hallway to confirm that. If anything, things seemed to be getting worse; at least before, the two had made the effort to try and act their actual ages. But now . . .

“Horsie!” Ven staggered as Aqua jumped on him. “I want a horsie ride!”

She was clinging onto his waist, her feet dangling above the ground. His expression going perfectly blank, Ven straightened up and said, “Can’t you go ask the Master?”

“Master says he’s too old,” Aqua said. “He said you have to do it.”

He sighed. At least Aqua was light. He dropped to his knees, letting Aqua scramble onto his back. She began to complain as he stood up again, stating that horses had four legs, not two. Ven pacified her with a lie that actually, there were some horses that walked on two legs.

Though he only walked out of his room, Aqua still felt the need to add her own ‘whooshing’ effects. “Faster, faster!” she demanded, and her enthusiasm tugged at the corners of Ven’s lips. Obediently, he picked up his pace, zipping down the halls as Aqua shrieked with glee.

“Look, I’m a plane!” he told her, as he held out his arms to act as wings.

And he continued to be a plane, at least until they came across Terra . . . who was dressed in nothing but his boxers.

Ven stopped short, to Aqua’s great disappointment. “Terra, where are your clothes?” he asked, trying (and failing) to pry his eyes away from the mostly naked boy.

Terra shrugged. “In my room. Master told me to change because they were dirty.”

“Okay, but changing usually means putting on clothes afterwards!”

Aqua shifted on his back and remembering her presence, Ven covered her eyes.

“But I . . .” Terra trailed off, face brightening with some kind of idea. “Oh, I know!”

Terra ran off. Ven stared after him, not liking the sounds of this.

* * *

It turned out that gut feeling was right, as Terra later showed up to dinner in one of Ven’s shirts. It went down to Terra’s ankles, flaring out at the bottom and giving the boy the illusion of wearing a nightgown. Eraqus and Ven stared; Aqua turned to her Master and asked why Terra was allowed to bring a blanket to the table.

“That is not a blanket,” Eraqus told her.

Ven flailed. “Teeerra! Why are you wearing my clothes?!”

“I don’t have any that fit me,” Terra said. “They’re all too big.”

Okay, that was probably true, but that didn’t mean Ven had to like it. He pouted, his lower lip jutting out. However, any adorableness he could conjure was utterly overshadowed by the cuteness of the tiny Aqua beside him and the cuteness of Terra wearing his over-sized shirt.

“I suppose it is time that we start thinking in the long-term,” Eraqus said.

“You think they’ll be like this for that long?” Ven asked.

Eraqus said, “They may be, they may revert back tomorrow. Either way, it would be wise for us to prepare for anything.”

* * *

“There’s so many people,” Aqua said, eyes wide. “Where are they going?”

“Shopping,” Ven said, “same as us.”

On Eraqus’ advice, Ven had taken his physically younger friends to a mall on another world called Destiny Islands. Surely, here they would find some store that served people of their age. Until then, Terra was stuck with his mud-stained shirt, for which a round of vigorous washing had done nothing to make it clean again.

“These look like they’re your size. Come on, let’s go inside!”

Dragging them along by the wrists, he pulled his friends into the department store. It was a colourful, loud place, filled with children and the faint scent of candy. It was the complete opposite of the Land of Departure, and Aqua and Terra seemed to have no idea of how to deal with it; Ven thought he could see their brains overloading.

“So, here’s the deal, guys!” Ven said, clapping them on the back. “You go find some clothes you like, and bring them back to me, okay?”

“What if I don’t like any of them?” Terra demanded, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“Then you’re going to have to run around the mall naked, got it?”

Terra blanched. Thankfully, Terra was past the age where being naked around strangers was perfectly okay . . . Not that Terra was a kid. Ven took a deep breath; he really had to stop thinking like that.

He set Terra and Aqua loose in the store, feeling a little lonely when he was left alone. He had just made up his mind to follow them, when a girl asked, “Are those your siblings?”

“Huh?” He turned, rubbing the back of his neck. “Err, kind of. It’s a long story. . .”

Within a few seconds, Terra and Aqua were forgotten. Not that they noticed; they were too busy staring at a manikin in the back of the store.

“Terra,” Aqua said, staring fearfully at the manikin, “why isn’t she moving?”

“It’s not real, Aqua,” Terra said with all the wisdom of a seven year-old. “It’s just there to hold clothes.”

“But how do you get the clothes off?”

Terra grinned. “Like this!”

Terra hopped onto the table holding the manikin, coming up to its chin. Clumsily, he yanked at the poor manikin’s shirt, intending to tear it off and present it to Aqua. Unfortunately for him though, even at this age, Terra was fairly strong, and the manikin was very light . . .

Terra cried out as he fell, the manikin falling on top of him. Aqua covered her eyes, and then peered through her fingers to see Terra wrestling with the pale figure.

“Get off!” he growled, kicking out. He sent the thing flying off him, and the head tumbled off as the manikin’s neck crashed against a table corner.

Immediately, kids began to wail.

“Mommy, that person’s head fell off!”

“Is she dead? Did he kill her?”

“He ripped her head off!”

Terra inched away from the decapitated manikin. A crowd of children was gathering around him, many dragging their exasperated parents along. “Aqua,” he said slowly, “I think we should go.”

“What about our clothes?” she asked.

Terra opened his mouth, about to answer her, when he saw movement in the corner of his vision. It looked to be an employee; he had a nametag, after all. And when the teen’s eyes bore into his, Terra knew that the employee was heading straight towards him.

“Run!” he shouted, grabbing Aqua quickly.

Meanwhile, Ven, in all his wonderful observant nature, was just finishing up his conversation with the girl. “Yeah,” he said, laughing, “they’re not too much trouble. I can introduce you to them, if you’d like-”

While he was speaking, he had looked over the girl’s shoulder for any trace of Terra and Aqua. But he didn’t see them anywhere.

“That’s odd,” he murmured, “where did they go?”

He scanned the store, passing over the piles of shirts, pants and a crowd of people around a fallen manikin. Frowning, he turned slightly, just happening to glance through the glass windows to the rest of mall. There, he found them, but his relief was short-lived. They were there, but they weren’t alone. There was a teen chasing them, eyes narrowed with anger as he closed in on his prey . . .

The shout erupted from him. “Hey, get away from them!”

Ven ran out of the store, blind to everything outside his friends and their pursuer. He shoved a couple aside, the harsh pounding of his heart making him deaf to their threats. With no hesitation whatsoever, he threw himself upon the larger, stronger teen, his weight bringing them both to the ground.

As the teen cursed and stirred underneath him, Ven only had eyes for the small figures of his two friends, who were steadily heading towards the doors.

“Terra, Aqua, wait!”

But by the time he stood up again, they were long gone.


	13. New Friends

“Hurry up, he’s going to catch us!”

The two children scampered down the road, huffing and puffing. Behind them followed a man with sweat pouring down his face, but looking no less determined. Only half a block ahead of him, the children zipped around a corner, upon which the larger one saw an opportunity and pulled his smaller companion into a bush. There, they waited, the bush’s leaves trembling. But this phenomenon thankfully went unnoticed, and the man’s feet continued to slap against the concrete as he hurried past them.

“Is he gone?” the smaller child asked.

The larger one peeked out of the bush, a leaf entangling itself in his hair. “Yeah, I think we lost him, Sora.”

Sora crept up to where his friend was sitting, attempting to see for himself. “Riku, do you think he knows who we are?”

“Of course he does,” Riku said confidently. “ _Everyone_ knows who we are.”

Sora whimpered, “He’s going to tell my mommy!”

Any comforting words Riku had to share were lost in the chaos of two other children leaping into the bush. One of them, a large brunet boy, slammed right into Riku and the two collapsed in a heap of tangled limbs and shouts. The other, a small blue-haired girl, tumbled to a stop right in front of Sora.

Sora beamed. “Hi!”

“Hi!” the girl said shyly.

Meanwhile, Riku and the other boy were kicking at each other as they struggled to disentangle themselves.

Sora said, “I’m Sora! This is my best friend, Riku. What’s your name?”

“Aqua,” the newly-branded Aqua said. “He’s Terra.”

By this time, Terra and Riku had separated, and they glared daggers at each other as they gasped for breath. “What are you doing here?” Riku demanded, speaking as if this bush was his and Sora’s private property.

“Hiding,” Terra said. “There’s a man chasing us.”

“Us too!” Sora exclaimed.

Caught off guard by this, Terra and Riku blinked at each other, previous hostilities forgotten in place of how much they had in common.

Excitement bubbling in his voice, Sora asked, “Do you want to play with us?”

* * *

“Terra! Aqua!”

Ven walked slowly through the mainland of Destiny Islands, hands cupped around his mouth as he called his best friends’ names. For their part, Terra and Aqua answered with nothing but silence, and as time went by, Ven’s worry grew. The Master would kill him if he returned without them!

He kicked an overturned garbage can, sighing when a spitting cat emerged instead of his friends. He had no idea how big this place was; they could be anywhere!

“This isn’t funny, you guys,” Ven said, hoping that they were secretly following him. “If you don’t come out right now, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll tell Master!”

No small faces made themselves known, and Ven had the sudden urge to beat his head against a wall.

“Next time,” he muttered, “I’m bringing a leash.”

* * *

“Okay, so here’s the rules,” Riku announced, his chest puffed out in an expression of authority. “Aqua’s the princess, and we’re the knights going to rescue her.”

“But I don’t want to be the princess!” Aqua whined. “I want to be a knight, too.”

Riku scoffed. “You can’t be a knight; you’re a _girl_.”

“But I don’t want to be the princess!”

Terra put his two cents in. “She’s not very princessish. Maybe she should be a knight.”

Riku stomped his foot. “Then who’s going to be the princess.”

Terra glanced back at the only member of their party who hadn’t spoken. Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, he said, “What about Sora?”

* * *

“Have you seen these two?” Ven demanded, waving a hand drawn picture of his friends in front of an old couple.

“No, I can’t say we have,” the old lady answered. “I’m sorry, my dear.”

Ven’s entire body wilted. “That’s okay. Thanks anyways.”

The old man frowned and ruffled Ven’s hair. “Cheer up, old sport. You’ll find your dogs somewhere.”

“Dogs?” Ven frowned. “I’m talking about my friends!”

Shock revealed itself on the old couple’s face. “My mistake,” the old man said, “but that drawing . . .”

Ven stared at him, then at his picture. A second passed, as did another. Then, turning his head towards the heavens, Ven screamed in frustration.

* * *

“This isn’t funny! Let me go!”

Sora squirmed in Terra’s headlock, twisting away from Aqua who was seated in front of him. In her hand, she held some lipstick. Squinting with concentration, Aqua brought the lipstick close to Sora’s cheek, only for Sora to turn violently again and clip it with his nose.

Aqua puffed out her cheeks. “Sora, I can’t put makeup on you if you keep moving.”

“Yeah, Sora,” Riku said as he supervised their attempts to make him pretty. “Stop moving.”

“But my mommy will be angry if we use her makeup,” Sora said. “Can’t I wear the dress?”

Soothingly, Terra said, “You can wear the dress, too. But you have to keep still first.”

Lured by the promise of getting to wear a dress, Sora huffed, but fell limp. Happily, Aqua smeared lipstick all over his mouth. Then she stared at it thoughtfully.

“Terra, look!” Aqua leaned forwards and drew a diagonal line from the bottom of Terra’s nose to the edge of his face. “Warpaint!”

Terra released Sora and instead touched the red line of lipstick, eyes lighting up. Upon seeing what was going on, Riku inserted himself between him and Aqua, stating, “I want warpaint, too!”

Obediently, Aqua began to draw on Riku’s face. Terra and Sora watched. Eventually, Terra turned to Sora and said, “So, why do you have a dress anyways?”

Sora smiled and said, “It’s Riku’s dress!”

* * *

After some much-needed drawing advice from the old couple, Ven had a set of posters that actually looked somewhat like people. He was currently in the process of pasting them up on every tree and pole that he could find. ‘Missing’, the poster declared, ‘two young children named Terra and Aqua. Please return them to Ven for a reward of 100 munny.’

“Who’s Ven?” a random passer-by asked. Her companion shrugged.

Meanwhile, Ven was sitting cross-legged on a nearby tree stump. His eyes were closed, his hands were cupped around his knees. He took a deep breath, and reached out with his mind . . .

“This isn’t working,” he said. Uncrossing his legs, he held his head in his hands, and muttered, “Think, think! Where would I go if I were a kid . . . ? The beach!”

Grasping at that, Ven raced down the road towards the beach, passing by a silver-haired boy who was dressed in cardboard armour and running around with a wooden sword.

* * *

“Die, dragon!” Riku hissed, thrusting his sword towards the beast.

The dragon in question, a large old dog Sora’s family affectionately called Fluffy, opened one eye, spotted the children crawling over him, and then closed it again. Riku poked the dog in the stomach as Aqua sat on its back and Terra made faces. Standing triumphantly, Riku pointed his sword upwards and declared, “We saved you, Princess Sora.”

The children cheered.

Sora, clad in his bright yellow dress, ran up to his saviours, his oversized high heels clomping against the ground. “Yay! Now what?”

Riku was about to suggest they could be pirates when he heard Sora’s mom calling them to dinner. At once, the three knights (and one princess) threw down their swords, and ran downstairs, crowding onto the seats at a table that had only been set for three.

“Are you boys hungry?” Sora’s mother asked, walking in with the main course. “Because I . . .”

She stopped short at the sight of not two, but four pairs of eyes gazing hopefully at her.

“Sora,” she said, “who are your two friends. And is that my makeup?”

* * *

The day was dying, and Ven was in a complete panic. He roamed the darkened streets alone, still crying out Terra and Aqua’s names. But just like it had before, only silence greeted him, and his voice cracked as he shouted for them one last time.

_They’re dead. They’re dead, or hurt, or . . ._ His thoughts faded, for his mind was literally unable to proceed down that path. _This is all my fault. How could I let them run off like that?_

He remembered how it started: a simple question, and he had been distracted. How ridiculous it seemed now, to think that he could have let anything that stupid come between him and his friends. To make it worse, it wasn’t him being punished, but them.

He tried to tell himself that they were fine; they were really adults, after all. But he couldn’t stop thinking about how small they were, or how broken-down Terra had been when he realized Earthshaker had abandoned him, or how Aqua had been following him around this morning with wide, innocent eyes and a string of never-ending questions. The more he thought about it, in fact, the more convinced he was that something terrible had happened to them.

In the lonely light of a solitary streetlight, Ven fell to his knees and cried.

That’s how the woman found him: curled up against a wall, sobbing into his arms. She stared at him for a couple of moment, and then lightly touched his shoulder. In response, Ven lifted his head, revealing his red eyes.

“Are you Ven?” she asked.

Sniffling, Ven wiped his eyes and nodded.

“Do you know two people named Aqua and Terra?”

He was on his feet in a flash, desperately asking, “Do you know where they are?”

She nodded.

The walk to the woman’s house seemed to stretch on for an eternity, even though she only lived about a block away. To Ven, it seemed that she took her sweet time opening her door, and he bounced from foot to foot impatiently. The second the door was unlocked, he barged in, frantically looking around for his friends.

He found them alive, safe, better than that actually. The joy and delight in the room was positively suffocating. The children, four of them, not two, had stolen all the pillows and blankets in the house and had used them to build themselves a fortress. From over the fortress’ walls, Aqua peeked out.

“Hi, Ven!” she said.

Ven weakly said hi back, then turned to the lady, blubbered thank-yous, and fumbled in his pocket for the reward munny. She waved him off with a small smile.

Ven approached the fortress, staring blankly as Terra and Aqua scurried out to greet him. They smiled up at him, completely oblivious to the storm of relief threatening to tear him apart.

“Hi!” Terra said.

Ven pounced, grabbing them before they could flee, and hugged them tightly.

“Never run off again,” he breathed. “Please.”


	14. Of Girls and Boys

Eraqus stared. Simply stared. He’d opened the response from Xehanort and . . . well . . . it was _different_ , that’s for sure.

 _My moustache is not that big_ , he fumed.

There were a few pages of actual words, but the rest were these . . . these images! Light forbid, what had he done to acquire such an unusual, and frankly, immature response? This _was_ from Xehanort, right? Certainly, the words sounded like him, but the pictures – or should he say, these monstrosities – were a far cry from his usual style. Plus, Xehanort was probably a better drawer than this. These looked as though toddlers had scribbled them!

 _Perhaps someone else’s mail accidently was added to his_. Yes, that seemed reasonable, but why would someone have been drawing him in the first place . . . ?

Any further deliberations on his part were interrupted by his door slamming open. His immediate action was to lunge forwards and cover the drawings with his body, hiding them from the prying eyes of whichever one of his apprentices had disturbed him. They were quickly forgotten, however, when Aqua shrieked his name in a high-pitched, frightened voice.

“Aqua, what is it?” Eraqus asked, an inch away from leaping out of his chair.

Aqua ran up to his desk, so that her lower body was hidden and Eraqus could only see the top half of her head. “Master, is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“About Terra.” Aqua’s voice took on a hushed tone. “Is it true about him?”

Dear Light, what had happened this time? He took a second to compose herself, and then he stood in the expectation that he would have to run to his apprentice’s aid. “Out with it: what about Terra.”

“Is it true that he’s a _boy_?”

For a whole ten seconds, Eraqus was too stunned to answer. “Yes,” he said finally, “Terra is a boy.”

Aqua’s mouth formed a perfect ‘O’. “For how long?” she demanded.

Growing impatient, Eraqus pinched the bridge of his nose and snapped, “He has always been a boy! You knew this, Aqua.”

“No, I didn’t,” Aqua protested. “I thought he was Terra, not a _boy_.”

She spoke as if there was actually a difference between the two. Eraqus tapped his foot and glared at her, waiting for her to either start laughing or more likely, to lose her cool façade and apologize. But Aqua did not appear to be leaning towards either of those options; her expression remained as flabbergasted, as horrified, as _genuine_ as before.

“Are you going to continue to waste my time with this?” Eraqus spoke that roughly, but it lacked some of the bite it usually would have had, because despite himself, part of him couldn’t help but feel this was real.

Aqua stood up on her tiptoes and set her chin on his desk. “Does Terra have cooties?” she whispered.

* * *

While Eraqus was revealing the true gender of Aqua’s best friend to her, someone else had made a terrible discovery.  If asked, Ven would have said that normally, he was moderately respectful of other people’s privacy; but she had left it there, wide open. How could he resist a peek?

At first, he didn’t know what he was looking at. It looked to be a sketchpad - the sloppy drawings would attest to that. But he flipped back a few pages, and the drawings were replaced completely by neat handwriting. And, well, it really was her fault for leaving this out in the open – he really couldn’t be blamed for trying to figure out whatever it was.

According to the cover, this was supposed to be Aqua’s journal, though that begged the question of what was with the doodles in the back. To his knowledge, Aqua had never had an inclination for drawing. He skimmed the pages, flipping through them in search of the one it had originally been open to. Aqua’s handwriting, in the glimpses he caught of it, was exactly as one would expect: neat, tidy, elegant. It was the kind of graceful curves and loops that would be framed and displayed as an example for future generations.

Whoa, what was this?

As the entries bordered on the edge of the present day, Aqua’s style began to unravel. It was minor at first, subtle: the letters, tightly compressed like a spring before, found room to stretch; the spacing became more irregular; a few words drifted above or below the line.

Ven bit his lip. He didn’t like this. By itself, it was probably nothing to fret over, but combined with Aqua’s condition, it did not bode well.

And he skipped over a few pages and flipped to yesterday’s entry. There was no handwriting here, but printing in large, bulky letters, whose sentences swooped upwards as they went on. In the bottom half of the page was a simple drawing of four smiling stick figures, two of which he immediately recognized as Terra and Aqua herself. It took him a while to identify the other two, but eventually he realized they were the boys from Destiny Islands.

His stomach dropped. He knew that whatever he read wouldn’t be good, but he couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away.

 _‘me and terra played with sora and riku,’_ the journal read in all its appalling grammar. _‘we played knights and princesses. I like sora and riku. I hope we can play with them again.’_

Ven reread the entry a few times, making sure he didn’t miss anything. This wasn’t good, not at all. There was no way this was a prank because Aqua wasn’t that kind of person and even if Terra had somehow talked her into it, she wouldn’t use her actual journal.

 _She really thinks she’s a kid,_ he realized, _and if she thinks that, Terra . . ._

Honestly, it made sense now that he thought about it. At the least, it explained a lot of their behaviour. Wordlessly, he scooped up the journal and headed for Master Eraqus’s office.

* * *

Slumped over in his chair, Ven kicked at the ground and said, “So, what do you think?”

Master Eraqus put down Aqua’s journal. “It appears things are much more serious than I suspected. I had better inform Xehanort and Yen Sid about this.”

“So, what should we do?”

Master Eraqus arched an eyebrow. It seemed to Ven that he was struggling not to smile. “How much experience do you have with babysitting?”

Before Ven could answer, Aqua ran in, screaming, “Maaaaster!” She ran around the desk and leapt into Eraqus’ lap, shivering.

Eraqus seemed to soften, and some paternal air radiated from him. “Yes, Aqua?”

“I think Terra gave me cooties.”


	15. Ghosts of the Past

While his apprentices were usually asleep well before midnight, Eraqus hadn’t needed that amount of rest for a long time. His meditative training had long nurtured an endless source of inner energy, and sleep, when it was required of him, was often brisk, like taking a refreshing breath of morning air. That was why he was still awake when the clock announced the beginning of a new day. Eraqus barely stirred, his focus directed on the papers in front of him. With careful, sharp movements, he finished up his report, and neatly deposited it in the folder labelled ‘The Fountain of Youth’.

He glanced up from his desk at the sound of a muffled crash. No doubt, it came from the nearby room of one of his apprentice’s. He had placed his office here for that very reason; it had come in handy when Terra had first arrived, and appeared it would be useful again.

With quiet steps, he left his office and walked down the hall. Terra, being the first of his apprentices, had the room closest to his office and thus, was the one Eraqus checked on first. He leaned against his apprentice’s door, pressing his ear close to the wood. From the other side, he could hear scratches and scuffling, as if a nest of mice were living between the walls.

He opened the door a crack. “Terra?”

There was a gasp, and then the creaking of bed springs as Terra leapt back into his bed and pretended to be asleep.

He opened the door fully. “Terra, I know you are awake.”

Terra laid limp on his bed, eyes closed, head lolling to one side. Eraqus merely poked him with Master Keeper, and Terra’s wakefulness was revealed with a yelp.

“What were you doing?” Eraqus asked.

“Nothing,” Terra said.

Eraqus grunted and then turned his eyes to the rest of the room. The door to the closet had been ripped open, and its contents were strewn across the ground. The haphazard pattern suggested that Terra had thrown them aside.

Eraqus changed his question. “What are you looking for?”

“My bear,” Terra said, cheeks growing red with shame.

His bear? His teddy bear? Terra hadn’t asked for that since . . .

_Since he was a boy,_ Eraqus realized.

“Stay put,” he told Terra. Eraqus walked over to the closet and reached for the highest shelf. There, tucked away into a corner, was a cardboard box. He could feel the dust under his fingers as he removed the lid. Terra’s bear stared down at him with black, beady eyes, and Eraqus removed it carefully. It smelt musty, of mulch and age, and dust had clumped in the bear’s short fur. Eraqus frowned, and then focused a small Magnet spell in his hand. The spell’s strength was not strong enough to attract any of the objects in Terra’s room – not even the bear itself – but it was strong enough to strip the dust from the animal when Eraqus held his hand close.

He presented the clean, but still smelly bear to Terra, who snatched it up and hugged it to his chest. Terra buried his face in its head, the smell apparently meaning nothing to him. After discarding the dust his spell had gathered, Eraqus tucked his apprentice into bed, taking a moment to absorb the sight of Terra cuddling with his bear.

Eraqus frowned. True, he had recovered Terra’s precious stuffed animal, but the aura of sadness that surrounded the boy was unmistakable. Carefully, Eraqus seated himself on the side of Terra’s bed, asking, “Is something wrong, Terra?”

Terra made an odd noise and turned over, providing Eraqus with the confirmation he needed. Exhaling deeply, he stroked the boy’s hair and said, “You can tell me, Terra. I won’t be mad.”

Terra turned his head slightly. “Did my parents love me?”

Eraqus’ heart skidded to a stop, then thumped painfully and started up again. He fumbled for an answer, chest growing tight with dread. “Of course they did,” he said.

Terra rolled over. “Why’d they leave me?” he asked.

_Kingdom Hearts, don’t let us go through this again . . ._ “Sometimes,” Eraqus said, “people do things they don’t mean. Sometimes, people have to do terrible things, even to those they love.”

“I don’t think they loved me,” Terra mumbled, clutching his bear even tighter to him.

“Of course they did,” Eraqus lied. “They loved you very much.”

Terra’s shoulders jerked, as if they were trying to shrug. He began to nibble on his thumb, a habit that young him and Aqua had shared. “Are you going to leave?” he asked.

“No, I won’t leave.” Hearing the boy’s question for what it really was, Eraqus shifted, allowing Terra to curl into his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

He woke at dawn, groggy-eyed, disoriented, still in his (now rumpled) day clothes. He was mostly upright, slumped against a wall, and his back complaining about the position he found himself in. Terra was fast asleep, nestled in his lap like a baby bird in its nest. There was a small damp spot from where the boy had drooled, and his thumb rested close to his open mouth, as if he had been sucking it.

Eraqus stretched a little, and his spine cracked in response. His one leg was numb from bearing Terra’s weight throughout the night, and he became aware of how many drafts the room held. His lower half was fine, warmed by Terra’s presence, but his upper half was quite cold indeed. It really was an uncomfortable place he found himself in.

Still, he stayed there for the next hour and the next, until Terra finally woke up.


	16. Bruises

“I’m going to kill you!” Terra cried. He swung his wooden keyblade in a powerful downwards blow, slamming it against the humming shaft of Wayward Wind.

Ven grinned. “Sorry Terra, but I don’t think so.” As Terra grunted and tried to push past Ven’s guard, the blond simply stepped to the side, causing Terra to fall forwards. From the sidelines, Aqua cheered.

“You’re supposed to be cheering for me!” Terra said from his spot on the ground.

“Can’t help it if I’m more exciting. Now don’t be a poor loser” Ven planted his foot on Terra’s back, and held his keyblade up in a heroic pose. Terra thrashed underneath him.

“Get off!” the younger boy demanded.

Ven did so, and Terra’s treacherous nature revealed itself as he immediately tried to wrestle Ven to the ground. Hands on the other’s shoulders, Ven endured Terra’s assault for a bit, and then took advantage of his strength to spin the smaller boy around and secure a lock around his neck. With his other hand, he ruffled Terra’s hair.

Terra cried, “Aqua, help!”

 A small weight attached itself to Ven’s back as Aqua rushed to offer her assistance. She hung limply from his neck in a weird parody of a cape. With Aqua dangling off his neck and Terra still in a headlock, Ven slowly moved backwards, taking them both with him. But then the ground wasn’t completely underneath him, and he only had the time to think, _Oh crap, we’re on a hill!_ before he teetered backwards.

He twisted and curved his body as he fell, just barely managing to avoid squishing Aqua. He landed on his side, Terra on one side of him, and Aqua on the other. Overcome with relief that he hadn’t accidently killed one of them, Ven was slow to recover – certainly he was slower than Terra, who took quick advantage of Ven’s stunned state.

“I got him!” Terra leapt onto Ven’s chest, and started pummelling him with tiny fists. Ven let him, only swatting away his hands when they hovered too close to his face.

“Oh, no,” Ven said, struggling not to laugh, “what am I going to do?”

“You’re going to lose,” Terra told him cheerfully.

Ven laughed, and then gasped in pain when something hard smashed against his shins. Past Terra stood Aqua, who had clearly recovered the wooden keyblade.

“Aqua, don’t use that,” he said.

Aqua looked at him, confused, and then raised it for another strike.

 Ven sat up, neatly knocking Terra aside, and grabbed the wooden shaft before it could do any more damage. “You don’t hit people with that,” he told her. “Keyblades , yes. People, no.”

He turned back to Terra, who was examining his bleeding arm with awe. Wait, when did that happen? The wound was fairly small, only the length of his finger or so, but still, it was _bleeding_.

Ven grabbed Terra’s arm tight, probably leaving a few bruises. “Okay, okay . . . just don’t freak out, got it? It’s fine, I can fix this.”

He cast a Cure spell, felt the magic leave him, and his mouth dropped open when nothing happened.

“It’s not working?” he mumbled. “Oh no, this is bad . . . Okay, everything’s alright – just _stay here_. I’m going to be gone for just a second, okay?”

Before Terra could answer, Ven took off, screaming for the Master.

Aqua poked at Terra’s arm. “Look, it’s gone.”

“Oh, okay,” Terra said. “What do you want to do now?”

* * *

Ven came back five minutes later, a strip of white bandage flaring behind him like a pennant. Terra and Aqua took one look at him, saw the crazed look in his eyes, and ran for their lives.

“Terra, get over here!”

Terra, upon realizing the madman was after him, darted for the cover of the nearby woods. He found a small hollow in the roots of a tree, and dove into it like a rabbit seeking shelter in its burrow. That left Ven crouched at the entrance, turning his head this way and that as he tried to find a way to fit inside.

“Terra, I’m trying to help you!”

In the gloomy hole, the faint light reflected off of Terra’s eyes, giving him a spectral appearance. The boy pressed himself against the far wall, moving out of Ven’s reach. But Ven merely summoned his keyblade and pointed it down the hole, and said, “Magnet.”

Terra squeaked as he was pulled out, upon which Ven grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and held him down.

“I didn’t do it!” Terra said.

“Great. Now,” Ven chewed on his bottom lip, “just stay still.”

He and Terra fought for control of the latter’s arm. Finally, Ven pried it away from Terra’s chest and turned it over to reveal that it was perfectly fine.

“Oh.” Ven sat back. “Well.”

Terra sniffed and reclaimed his arm.

Ven moaned. “So, I got these all for nothing?”

Unbeknownst to him, Terra’s lips curled in a smirk.

* * *

Eraqus watched the children gobble down their lunch, sipping a cup of tea himself. Their faces were flush from exertion, and there seemed to be an air of secrecy and unity binding them. He didn’t pay it much mind. He’d seen that many times the first time they were at this age; they were probably wearing each other’s socks or something.

But there was still something that bothered him; someone was missing from their little family.

“Where is Ventus?” Eraqus asked.

Aqua giggled, and Terra smiled. “Outside,” he said evasively.

Eraqus stared at his apprentices suspiciously, and then left in search of Ventus.

He found him outside, at the edge of the training grounds where grass met pine. That wasn’t terribly unusual; rather, it was the position he found Ventus in. Ventus was kicking and cursing, seated on the ground against a tree, a wide band of white keeping him in place.

Ventus met Eraqus’s stare.

The apprentice sighed and sagged forwards. “They promised they wouldn’t tie it that tight.”

“And you believed them?”

“Yes . . . I was an idiot, wasn’t I?”

Eraqus nodded. “Yes, you were.”


	17. Thunder and Lightning

A loud boom shook the castle. Outside, the trees struggled to endure the force of the wind, many losing leaves in the onslaught. Those leaves swirled upwards, up towards the black clouds that replaced what should have been a starry sky. Tonight, however, there were no lights, save for the occasional fork of lightning that snaked its way down to land.

Eraqus woke during one of these strikes, and for a brief half-second, his room was lit up in an array of harsh light and distorted shadows. Raindrops slapped against the window, and there was so much of it that he could hardly see outside. The storm had made the world cold, but with his blanket wrapped around him, Eraqus was toasty warm. He blinked furiously as the rain continued to hammer the ground, and then rolled over, shutting his eyes again. It was only a storm, nothing to fear.

_Wait, a storm . . ._

His eyes snapped open.

The blanket fell to the ground as Eraqus leapt to his feet and wrenched his door open. The hall was cold and bare, and stepping into it felt like walking into a haunted house. With brisk steps, he hurriedly made his way to Terra’s room and opened it without asking for permission.

Terra was nowhere to be found. His pillow lay rumpled on the floor, but his bed’s sheets were missing as well as his teddy bear. A moment of thought, and then Eraqus marched over to Terra’s closet and pulled it open. Lightning chose to strike again at that moment, and in its brief light, Eraqus could see a trembling ball of sheets in the closet’s corner.

“Terra.” Eraqus placed his hand on the top of the mass. “Is that you?”

The ball was tightly wound, and it took him a while to find somewhere that he could start to unravel it. Upon performing that task however, the first thing he saw were Terra’s dilated pupils. He unwrapped the boy a little more, and then Terra sprang out of his sheets and slammed into his chest. Tears were falling down Terra’s cheeks freely as his chest heaved with terror. His hands gripped Eraqus’ shirt tight, nearly clawing at the skin underneath, and it felt like the boy was trying to squeeze him in half.

For a moment, Eraqus couldn’t move, so great was the sense of déjà vu that swept over him. This was no happy memory that haunted him though and without prompting, snatches of that time flashed through his mind.

_A storm. A shadow spreading across the land. And a little boy running from monsters, clutching a large key to his chest._

Breaking out of his flashback, he rubbed the boy’s back. “Shh, it’s okay, Terra. You’re safe.”

Terra sobbed something incoherent, and burrowed deeper into his chest.

Eraqus scooped Terra up and brought him into the hall, away from the stark sight of the lightning. Terra clung to him, arms wrapped around his neck. Eraqus could feel the boy’s dominant hand clenching and unclenching, shaking with the incessant need to summon his keyblade, his only defense against the monsters he knew liked to follow the storms.

But Earthshaker did not come, and that fact only caused Terra’s shaking to intensify. So Eraqus set the boy down, called upon Master Keeper, and brought it up to Terra’s hands. The keyblade grew warm when the apprentice touched it, and hummed comfortingly.

He let Terra take Master Keeper from him, and Terra hugged it to him. His face glistened with tears as he started to bite at his thumb; he looked exactly as he did when Eraqus first found him. Though it had been Terra who broke the hug, Eraqus pulled him back into one anyways. Terra did not fight him.

“It’s okay,” Eraqus murmured. “You are safe here. Nothing is going to hurt you.”

Terra’s loud breathing filled the hall. Eraqus resumed his rubbing of Terra’s back, all the while whispering words of comfort. Slowly, Terra began to relax, until his nails were no longer digging into Eraqus’ flesh.

Eraqus wiped a stray tear from underneath Terra’s eye. “It is okay to be afraid. True courage comes from facing your fears.”

Terra said nothing, but his breathing was no longer the frantic pace it had been. He remained as he was, huddled into Eraqus’ chest, and Eraqus steadied his own breathing in response. Little by little, Terra copied him, until they both were breathing normally again.

“How about we find Aqua, hmm?” Eraqus said. “I imagine that she is frightened, too.”

Again, Terra did not answer, but his answer was not truly required. Terra would only be most comfortable when surrounded by everyone he loved, and Eraqus knew that.

He picked Terra up and opened the door to Aqua’s room, finding it empty. But Ven’s door was open a crack, and it was obvious where she had gone.

He entered Ven’s room just in time to hear Aqua say, “Don’t be scared Ven, the storm will be over soon!”


	18. The Plot Thickens

“I hate you,” Vanitas grumbled. “Why are you making me do this?”

Xehanort, walking up the road to his fellow’s Master’s home, did not look at his apprentice. “Eraqus requested that I bring you along in case our research takes us off-world. And don’t blame me for your apparel – that was your choice.”

Vanitas growled. In preparation for this task, he had shed his signature helmet and bodysuit for what one would deem ‘normal clothes’. “I just want to make sure the girl doesn’t recognize me.”

“That, too, was your fault for getting too close.”

Vanitas scoffed as Xehanort knocked on the doors to the massive castle. They opened at once, despite the fact that there was no one on the other side. With all the arrogance of a king, Xehanort stepped over the castle’s threshold, taking a deep breath as if he had just seen this place for the first time.

Eraqus appeared. “Ah, Xehanort, thank you for offering your assistance in this matter. Hopefully, with our combined knowledge we can start moving towards a cure.”

“I certainly hope so,” Xehanort grunted. “This problem is one that affects us all.”

Vanitas nearly smirked, but bit it back in time when he remembered that he didn’t have the protection of his helmet. He was actually going to have to pretend to be _nice_. Ugh, this was going to be a bigger pain than he had thought.

Through the doorway that Eraqus had entered, Terra peeked out from around the wall. Xehanort saw him immediately, eyes sharpening like a hawk that had just spotted a very juicy hare. “Ah, that must be Terra,” he said. “Come here, boy, let me see you.”

“Come, Terra.” Eraqus beckoned his apprentice forwards. Terra came cautiously, tiptoeing as if wary of startling the old Master into attacking.

Leaning over, Eraqus placed his hand on the small of Terra’s back. “This is Master Xehanort,” he told Terra. “Say hello.”

Upon hearing Eraqus pronounce his title, Vanitas could almost see Xehanort’s ego swell. There was a proud smirk on the old man’s face, and he drew himself up high, chest expanding in preparation of his impromptu speech.

“It is good to meet you,” Xehanort oozed. “As my friend said, I am Master Xehanort, and I am-”

Terra interrupted. “What’s wrong with you?”

Xehanort’s mouth snapped shut. Eraqus stared, his face going red. Vanitas struggled not to laugh, while simultaneously attempting to give the very serious-looking Terra an encouraging gesture.

Xehanort ground out, “What do you mean?”

Terra huffed, heels clicking together. “Why are you slouching?”

“I . . . I . . .” Xehanort looked to Eraqus, at a loss for what to say. “Is that a problem, boy?”

Terra nodded sternly. “Master says that slouching is bad posture. He says only lazy people slouch.” Terra’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forwards slightly. “Are you lazy?”

“Terra!” Eraqus slapped a hand over Terra’s mouth, to Vanitas’ great disappointment.  “That doesn’t apply to someone like Master Xehanort.”

Terra moved Eraqus’ hand away. “Because he’s old, right?”

Xehanort scowled, and he seemed to be trembling as he controlled himself. “Your Master and I were apprentices together,” Xehanort said. “I assure you, that I am no older than he.”

“Are you sure?” Terra asked. “You look-”

Eraqus covered Terra’s mouth again and gave his fellow Master a pained smile. “Such a sense of humour children have, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Xehanort said in a monotone that clearly stated he was imagining running Terra through with his keyblade.

“Why don’t you run along, Terra?” Eraqus practically shoved his apprentice out of the picture. “You can talk to Master Xehanort later.”

And another voice spoke. “Maaaster!”

“Dear Light, spare me,” Eraqus moaned.

But it didn’t, and Ventus chose that moment to arrive on the scene, dragging Aqua along with him. The blond apprentice was beaming, and the light radiating from him made Vanitas want to barf. He could sense that same aura around Aqua, although it was muted and softer compared to how it had been when she was older.

“Is this Master Xehanort?” Ventus asked, approaching with Aqua in hand. “Good to meet you, sir.”

“Finally,” Xehanort said, “someone who knows how to express proper respect. You should take Terra aside and teach him a few things.”

While Xehanort had spoken, Ventus had gone perfectly still. The smile had slipped, not gone, but not real either. Aqua was squirming, poking at a grip on her hand that had suddenly became too tight.

Vanitas raised his eyebrows. Oh, this was getting interesting. He could practically see the memories threatening to bombard his other half’s mind. But before that could happen and ruin all their plans, Vanitas tapped Xehanort on the shoulder, causing the eye-contact between him and Ventus to break. At once, Ventus came back to life and took a shaky breath, holding his head.

“Are you okay?” Aqua asked kindly.

Ventus looked down at her and nodded.

“So, this is the other one,” Xehanort said. “I pray she is better trained than Terra.”

“Aqua? Oh, yes. She’s a charming child.” Eraqus gave her a proud, paternal smile. “Aqua, say hello.”

“Hello,” she parroted.

“Hello,” Xehanort said. “I am Master Xehanort, and I am-”

Xehanort had moved forwards in that instance, extending his hand in the expectation of a handshake. Clearly, however, he had not expected Aqua to cry out in fear – no one had really. She ran behind Ventus, pressing into his back, and said, “Ven, what happened to him?”

Ventus frowned. “He just wants to shake your hand.”

“No!” Aqua shook her head vigorously. “What happened to his _hair_?”

Kingdom Hearts, help him. This was like watching a train wreck, only more amusing. Vanitas turned his laugh into a wheeze, the force of which caused him to keel over at the waist.

“Ventus, why don’t you and Aqua go get something to eat!” Eraqus more ordered than asked that.

“Right away!” Ventus said quickly, hurrying Aqua away. Xehanort said nothing, but a vein in his temple was bulging.

“Come, let’s go up to my office and discuss things further,” Eraqus said in a desperate attempt to salvage the conversation.

They left for Eraqus’ office, but not before they heard Aqua say, “He’s _bald_? Is that because he’s so old?”


	19. Enter Vanitas

Left alone in Eraqus’ office with his Master, Vanitas took over Eraqus’ vacated seat, swung his feet on top of the desk and casually asked, “So, planning to introduce yourself to the rugrats anytime soon?”

Xehanort’s fists clenched, the knuckles turning white. The old man was still stewing over his last encounter with them.

“You’ll have to speak to them eventually,” Vanitas went on. “Might as well get it over with.”

Xehanort glared at him. Then, he smirked. “I believe I’ve already had my introduction, Vanitas. Why, I do believe it’s your turn.”

Vanitas’ glee, which had been the driving force behind all his actions before, vanished. “No. Not happening.”

“No?” Xehanort tapped his chin. “But if I do recall, you are the one who will have to assist Ventus in watching them.”

Vanitas crossed his arms, shaking his head fiercely. “No. No way. I am not going down there!”

And Xehanort’s grin was razor-sharp. “But you’ll have to speak to them eventually.”

“Look, get this through your head, old man. Nothing you say is making me go down there!”

* * *

Spluttering curses under his breath, Vanitas stood outside the door to Ventus’ room. He could hear Eraqus’ students inside, doing whatever the heck they were doing. He really didn’t care.

His forehead fell against the door. “It can’t be that bad,” he muttered. Sucking in a deep breath, he bottled up his emotions – lest the unversed appear – turned the doorknob, and kicked the door open, just because he could.

It wasn’t a terribly chaotic scene he found. Ven was sitting on the ground, back against the bedframe, while Aqua sat next to him and poked his hair. Terra was on the bed itself, holding up one of Ventus’ spare shirts as he examined it. All eyes turned to Vanitas when he entered and with a huge sigh, he opened his mouth and spoke:

“I’m Xehanort’s apprentice. My name is Vanitas. Now, leave me alone.”

“Hi, Vanitas!” Aqua said brightly before returning to the impossible task of getting Ventus’ hair to lay flat.

Ventus waved. Vanitas ignored him and walked over to the bed, where the small Terra glared up at him.

Terra scowled and said, “I don’t like you.”

Vanitas scowled back. “I don’t care.” Easily, he picked Terra up by the scruff of his shirt and tossed him off the bed. He then took the opportunity to lay on it himself, stretching so that he took up the entire space.

“Ven, Vanitas pushed me!”

“He didn’t mean it,” Ventus said, hugging Terra to him before the boy pounced on Vanitas. “He’s sorry. Right, Vanitas?”

Eyes closed, arms crossed behind his head, Vanitas said, “Nope.”

“See, Terra? He’s . . . wait, what?”

Vanitas turned his head to meet Terra’s glower. “I’m not at all sorry.”

Terra started squirming like a puppy. Eventually he wriggled out of Ventus’ grasp and struck a threatening pose. Vanitas meet his eyes calmly, crocking a finger in a ‘come hither’ manner. He held that same hand up when Terra responded and without any fanfare, placed it over the boy’s face and held him back. Terra growled, swinging his arms in circles as he tried to strike Vanitas, only giving up when Vanitas shoved him onto his backside.

Ventus placed his head in his hands.

With a huff, Terra stood up again, searching the room. His face brightened, and then he was diving for Ventus’ wooden keyblade, much to the dismay of its owner.

“Terra, I told you guys not to hit people with those!”

Vanitas watched as Ventus wrestled with Terra for control of the wooden keyblade. Meanwhile, Aqua, having been deprived of her source of entertainment, crawled up to the head of the bed, and peered over its side at Vanitas’ face.

“You came with Master Xehanort,” she said.

He replied, “Good observation, genius.”

Aqua’s head retreated back below the bed sheets, so that only her eyes were visible. In a hushed tone, she asked, “Does that mean you’re going to be bald, too?”

He stiffened. “No. That’s just Xehanort.”

“Has he always been bald?”

“Has been ever since I met him.” An idea came to him suddenly, and he grinned. “You know what?” He rolled over, bringing his face close to Aqua so that Ventus couldn’t hear. “He’s in your Master’s office right now. Why don’t you go ask?”

“Okay!” And Aqua, with all the charm and innocence of a child, waddled out of the room.

As she left the room, Ventus finally pried the wooden keyblade out of Terra’s head. He held it above his head, keeping it out of Terra’s reach even as the boy jumped for it. “Hey, where’s Aqua?” he asked.

Vanitas said, “She’s going to ask Xehanort how long he’s been bald.”

“Oh, okay . . . wait, what?”

Ventus ran out of the room, hollering Aqua’s name, and Vanitas rolled onto his back again and snickered. This was going to be a lot better than he had anticipated.


	20. Xehanort Interrupted

Hands clasped behind his back, Xehanort strolled through the quiet halls. Eraqus was busy cooking dinner, Ventus was enjoying some long-sought peace, Aqua was taking a nap, and he had told Vanitas to leave him be. That left him alone, but not for long.

Terra was still available.

The boy’s door was open just a crack, enough for Xehanort to peek inside. He could only see the slope of Terra’s back (and the boy said he slouched!) as he crouched over something unseen. Xehanort looked up and down the hall, ensuring that no one was about to interfere with his plans, and then knocked on the door.

It creaked open at his touch and through the widening crack, he saw Terra freeze. “Terra,” he said, “may I come in?”

Terra said yes, and Xehanort opened the door fully. Terra stared at him curiously, attention drawn away from the action figures he had been playing with. They were in poor shape, dirty-looking with a mottled coat of paint. Not far away lay a box with its lid missing, labeled ‘Terra’s Old Things’.

Terra held up one of the figurines, a samurai that was missing one arm. “Want to play with me?” he asked.

Xehanort pretended he didn’t hear him and closed the door. “Terra, what do you know about darkness?”

“That’s what happens when it’s night.” Terra glanced at the window. “But it’s not night.”

“Not that darkness,” Xehanort said impatiently, “but the darkness found in people’s hearts.”

At once, Terra said, “Darkness is bad. It hurts people, so we have to destroy it.”

 _Oh, Eraqus._ Xehanort sighed _._ Could it be any more obvious that Eraqus had stuffed these words into his apprentice’s mouth? He studied Terra closely, finding no trace of the hatred Eraqus carried. Good. That meant Terra was not mature enough to appreciate the full extent of his Master’s warnings. He was still young, malleable. Foolish. It would be easy to plant the seeds now, so that Terra’s future descent into darkness would be seamless.

“Is that what Eraqus told you?” he asked.

Terra nodded. “Yeah, the Master’s really smart.”

“That may be.” Xehanort smirked, choosing his next words carefully, “but he is mistaken. Darkness cannot be destroyed, only channelled.”

Terra’s face went blank. “Ch-channelled?”

“Yes.” The world seemed to narrow, so that only he and Terra existed. “The darkness is nothing to fear, and you . . .”

Xehanort blinked. In the middle of his sentence, Terra had put his hand up.

“Yes?” he said.

“What’s channelled mean?”

“To control,” Xehanort said gruffly. “Now, Terra, the darkness is nothing to fear, but Eraqus -”

“Why don’t you call him Master?” Terra interrupted.  “Me, Ven and Aqua do.”

“Because I already am a Master,” Xehanort said. “Now –”

“But that’s disrespectful!” Terra exclaimed. “You can’t disrespect my Master!”

“I can call him whatever I please, now-”

Apparently, Terra hadn’t agreed with that last answer, for the apprentice had leapt to his feet and promptly kicked Xehanort in the shin.

Xehanort snarled, “You little brat!” He hobbled after Terra, who zipped to the other side of the room and hopped atop his bed.

At the sight of Terra standing triumphantly on his pillow, Xehanort remembered why he was here. He took a few deep breaths, satisfying his fury with the thought that once Terra had been cured and things were back on track, Xehanort was going to take over his body slowly and _painfully_. His arm was still outstretched towards the boy, fingers curled like claws and stiffly, he yanked it back to his side.

“Let’s get back on track, shall we?” Xehanort turned his back to Terra, unsure he could control his temper if he had to look at the insufferable apprentice. “Darkness is not evil, no more than the light is. It is merely energy, waiting for those brave enough to wield it. There is nothing to fear from darkness.”

Terra giggled. “What about going bald?”

Reflexively, without thinking, he snapped, “I am not bald!”

“Are, too!” Terra said. “That’s why you don’t have any hair.”

 _If I didn’t need you . . ._ Xehanort smoothed the snarl off his face, coming up with a perfect answer. “That’s because my hair is invisible,” he lied.

Terra’s eyes widened. “Wow. Really?”

“Yes, and it’s all because of darkness –”

“Can you make me invisible, too?”

* * *

“I’m telling you, Xehanort said his hair is invisible!”

Terra was saying that to Ven, who was laying down on a couch with Terra and Aqua in his lap. Both of the children were looking eagerly at their older friend, who rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.

“Terra, I’m pretty sure Xehanort was joking,” Ven said.

“He was not!”

Ven glanced at Vanitas, who was leaning against a doorframe. The black-haired apprentice scoffed and said, “He’s definitely bald.”

“Aw.” That came from both Terra and Aqua, who looked as though their worlds had been crushed.

Hating to see them sad in any way, Ven beamed and said, “Hey, why don’t we go outside? We could play hide-and-seek.”

The children cheered and Ven jumped off the couch, leading them towards the outside like a mother duck guiding her babies. But before Aqua, the last in line, could leave the room, Vanitas grabbed her and pulled her back. He stepped in front of her, preventing her from going after Ven, and hands on her shoulder, kneeled so they were at eye-level.

“Hello, Aqua.”

Aqua tried to back away, but Vanitas’ grip on her tightened, keeping her firmly in place. She whimpered, bottom lip beginning to tremble.

Vanitas chuckled. “Don’t be scared,” he said, a wolfish grin spreading across his face. “I just want to tell you a secret.”

“A secret?” At once, Aqua’s fear was replaced with curiosity.

Vanitas nodded. “That’s right. You see, I lied earlier. Xehanort _does_ have invisible hair.”

Aqua gasped. “Really? Why’d you lie?”

“Why did I lie?” He chuckled again and leaned forwards, whispering into her ear, “Because it was a secret.”

“Oh, okay.”

 “And you know what?” Vanitas leaned back again, clapping her shoulders. “I’m going to tell you how to make his hair visible again, but you have to promise not to tell anyone I told you, including your Master. Do you promise?”

Aqua nodded eagerly. “I promise!”

“Good girl. Now, here’s what to do . . .”

* * *

“So, what do you think?” Eraqus asked his fellow Master as they sat at the dining room table.

Xehanort said nothing at first, continuing to shuffle through the papers that Eraqus had gave him. “I see nothing you overlooked in these,” he finally said, throwing the stack onto a table. “It could be that the natives had no idea this Fountain existed, or more likely, that knowledge was not among the information you gathered for these reports. I propose that the two of us return to that world for answers.”

Eraqus sighed. “I was afraid of that. That means we will have to leave the kids behind, correct?”

Xehanort shrugged. “Send them to the beach. Children like beaches, yes?”

“That does seem like a good idea. Normally, I would be wary of sending them there with only Ventus to watch them, but with your apprentice to assist them, I see no reason they could not send a day there.” Eraqus gathered up the papers he had given Xehanort, arranging them into a neat pile. “Yes, that is a marvellous suggestion, Xehanort.”

The door to the dining room opened, but there was no one there. No wait, actually there was, they were just below Eraqus’ eye-level.

“Aqua,” Eraqus said in greetings. He raised an eyebrow at what he saw in her hands. “Aqua, why do you have . . .?”

He was unable to say anything else, only watch as Aqua hopped onto the chair next to Xehanort and dumped an entire bottle of tomato juice over his head.

Red dripped onto the pristine white floor.

Aqua frowned and said, “How come I still can’t see your hair?”


	21. To the Beach!

It was morning in the Land of Departure, and the air was filled with the sound of screaming kids – of course, ‘kids’ really meant ‘Terra’. Master Eraqus and Xehanort had departed by this time to investigate the Fountain of Youth, leaving Ven and Vanitas alone with their charges. Earlier, Eraqus had suggested that they take the kids to the beach at Destiny Islands for the day, something that Ven had agreed heartily with.

Terra and Aqua, too, loved that idea. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean they were going to cooperate.

“You’re not putting that on me!” Terra screeched as he ran down the hall. Apart from his regular clothes, he was wearing what appeared to be a red harness, better suited for dogs (which were in fact, whom it was originally designed for). Following close behind him was Ven, who had clasped in his hand a short leash.

“Come on, Terra!” Ven cried, panting. He may have had a gigantic stockpile of energy, but Terra was a _kid_. “I’ll take it off once we actually get to the beach!”

Terra raced down the hall and around the corner, passing by Vanitas who merely watched. Ven ran up to where Vanitas was, then stopped to catch his breath, hands on his legs.

“Having fun?” Vanitas asked, not bothering to conceal his smirk.

Ven glared at him. “You’re supposed to be helping, you know.”

“Am I?” Vanitas stepped back, arms crossed behind his head. “But why deprive you of all the fun?”

“Because if you don’t, we’ll never get to the beach . . . and you should care.” He pointed his finger at Vanitas as the black-haired boy rolled his eyes. “You do realize that you’re the only thing from off-world in the castle. You’re interesting to them. If we don’t get them to the beach, they’ll spend the entire day bothering _you_.”

The smirk slipped from Vanitas’ face as the truth of Ven’s statement sunk in.

“So?” Ven held out a leash.

Vanitas didn’t take it. “Give me ten minutes,” he said, storming off in the same direction Terra had gone.

* * *

Exactly ten minutes later, Vanitas arrived in the castle’s foyer, a child tucked beneath each arm. Terra was pouting, his body turned away from Vanitas as much as it was able. Aqua was squirming, though it seemed to be more out of discomfort than a desire to escape.

“Okay, hold still . . .” Concentrating fiercely, Ven attached a leash to each of the children’s harnesses. “Great! You can put them down.”

Vanitas did so. Kind of. He just moved his arms and let them drop.

Ven chose not to comment on that. “Do we have everything?” he asked Vanitas.

Vanitas shrugged. “According to your list we do . . .”

While the two older boys were going over that, Terra crept over to Aqua and tapped her on the shoulder. Without a sound, he pointed at Ven’s hand, which was holding their leashes, and then raised his eyebrows. Aqua nodded.

Still talking to Vanitas, Ven didn’t notice as the kids braced themselves.

They took off as one, the combined force yanking the surprised Ven off his feet. He landed on his back hard, air whooshing out of his lungs and his grip on the leashes weakening. Terra and Aqua pulled free, and then they were running of the castle and into the blinding light.

Ven thought he was going to cry.

* * *

“Just a few more . . . steps . . .” Ven grunted as he pulled his friends along. Terra had not taken kindly to being ensnared like this, and was fighting against Ven every second. Aqua was more sporadic, sometimes following along politely, other times helping Terra to make Ven’s day difficult. And Vanitas, being the jerk he was, was just watching.

“I could buy a couple of dog treats,” he said. “Maybe then they’ll listen.”

Ven glared at his fellow babysitter. “Ha ha. Hey, Terra, Aqua, look: it’s the beach!”

The leash slackened as Terra stopped pulling. Carefully, Ven reached behind him, his fingers grazing the metal clip that kept Terra tethered.

“I’m going to let you and Aqua go now, but you guys have to stay on the beach. One, two . . .”

On three, he took off the leash and Terra took off – but in the direction of the beach, at least. He was still wearing his clothes and harness, causing Ven to facepalm when the boy promptly dove into the ocean.

“He’s going to be freezing on the way home,” Ven remarked, as he freed Aqua from her harness. He also managed to get off her shoes before she ran after Terra.

Vanitas glanced sideways at Ven. “Now we ditch them, right?”

Ven laughed . . . until he realized Vanitas was serious.

“Are you joking?” he hissed. “We leave them alone, and they’ll probably blow up the town!”

“Well, then have fun, Ventus.” Vanitas slapped him on the back and casually made his way back towards the town, only to be stopped by Ven.

“You know,” Ven said offhandedly, “I bet the Masters wouldn’t be happy to hear that you were shirking your responsibilities. I mean, I don’t tattle, but you know kids; they just can’t keep their mouths shut.”

If stares could kill, Ven would have died five times over.

* * *

Ven shook his head, and brushed some sand off his shoulder. When yet another clump flew through the air and landed on his hair though, he gave up, turning instead to Terra, who was busy digging a giant hole.

“Terra, can you please toss your sand the other way.”

Terra appeared not to have heard him, and so Ven narrowly dodged another airborne pile of sand. Vanitas, however, wasn’t so lucky.

“Quit it, brat!” he snarled, whipping his sunglasses off in a needlessly dramatic fashion. He was currently sitting on a lawn chair that he had liberated from some person’s backyard, and holding a refreshing beverage in one hand. “What in Hades are you doing anyways?”

“Digging a hole,” Terra said. His head poked out from inside. “And when I’m done, you can’t sit in it.”

“Tragic,” Vanitas said.

Ven leaned over the hole. “What about me?” he asked.

Terra said, “You can.”

Ven nodded absently, looking away from Terra and in the direction of the ocean where Aqua was. She was sitting on the ground not far from them, watching the waves with awe.

Ven lay back on his towel. “I think things are going well . . .”

It was at that moment that he was trampled by two stampeding kids. He recovered just in time for Aqua to run over him.

The two intruding kids leapt into the hole, falling on either side of Terra. “Hi!” Sora said, grinning widely.

Groaning, Ven sat up, while Vanitas had leaned forwards on his chair with interest. “Who are these two?” he demanded.

“Sora and Riku,” Aqua said. She was kneeling at the side of the hole, jumping slightly when Sora hopped out of the hole. He took one glance at Vanitas, and then dove back in with a squeal, whispering furiously to Riku.

As one, Riku and Sora peered out of the hole at Vanitas, Terra copying suit a moment after. “He looks like you,” Riku hissed.

Sora nodded. “Yeah, but his eyes are scary.” With a shiver, he hid behind the combined bulk of Riku and Terra.

“Hey, mister,” Riku said, “why are your eyes weird?”

Vanitas ground his teeth together. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”

“Yes, there is. They’re _yellow_.”

Before Vanitas did anything rash, Ven leapt to his feet and pointed wildly. “Hey, look, a convenient beach ball. I’m going to get it before you guys!”

Crisis successfully adverted, Ven and the kids took off after the beach ball, leaving a sulking Vanitas behind.

 “Oh, just you wait,” he muttered. “Someday, I won’t be the only one with yellow eyes around here . . .”

* * *

There was a shadow beneath the waves. It moved silently, as swiftly as a ghost. Inch by inch, it crept upon the two small figures of Riku and Aqua, who were steadily making their way towards shore. If one looked to the left of them where Ven stood, they would see that the water was only up to his waist, though that did not deter the shadow.

The world darkened suddenly as clouds blocked out the sun. It was the perfect cover for the shadow, which had circled around the two children so that it was directly behind them.

Surrounded by bubbles, a dark fin broke the surface.

Aqua and Riku continued to wade their way back to land, Riku lagging a little behind. Ven had looked away from them as he shouted for Terra to start making his way towards shore. The brown-haired boy ceased swimming and turned to obey, eyes widening as he saw the dark fin just an arm’s length away from his friends.

He shouted. Riku and Aqua turned, and the water exploded as the shadow burst out of the ocean, teeth flashing . . .

. . . and Sora wrapped his arms around Riku’s neck as he unsuccessfully tried to chomp down on his shoulder.

“I got you!” Sora shrieked. “I told you I would! Now, you’re dead.”

He bounced with excitement, making the fin strapped to his back bob up and down. That same fin slid even further down his back when Ven made his way over the group and scooped Sora up.

“Don’t worry Riku, I’ll save you.” Ven had Sora slung over his shoulder, stomach up and  Riku immediately took advantage of that to splash Sora’s face.

From shore, Vanitas hollered, “Are you done yet?”

Ven sighed, and set Sora down. The group waited for Terra to catch up, and then headed back to shore.

Vanitas was waiting at the water’s edge, tapping his foot impatiently. “You said you’d be in ten minutes ago!” He said that with his arms crossed, giving him the surreal appearance of an impatient housewife.

“Aw, come on.” Ven shrugged as the kids ran past him (Sora and Riku staying far, far away from Vanitas). “Let them have a little fun.”

Vanitas said, “I’m not going to sit here and starve because you want a little _fun_.”

“You don’t have to just stand there,” Ven pointed out. “You could have always joined us.”

It seemed that for a moment, Vanitas didn’t know what to say. Eventually he settled on “whatever”, and stormed away, his boots leaving huge prints in the sand. Ven watched him, feeling a little sorry for the other apprentice for some reason he couldn’t quite place, before running to catch up with his friends.


	22. The Beach Continued

At the small food counter where they were eating, Sora and Riku sat on the edge of their seats. With wide eyes, they watched Terra, who slowly opened his mouth. Between his hands, he had a large hot dog, which he now raised to his mouth. He took a deep breath, and time seemed to freeze for a second, then he stuffed it into his mouth. His jaws worked for a bit, and then he swallowed it down and raised his arms in triumph to the applause of Riku and Sora.

“That’s his fifth one,” Sora said in amazement. “How does he do it?”

“Bet you can’t eat another,” Riku said, sliding a hot dog over to Terra.

Terra’s eyes glinted, a clear sign that he accepted this challenge, but Ven’s hand swooped out of nowhere and pinned his wrist to the countertop. “No more,” he said firmly. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

Terra snorted. “I could eat five more of those.”

“I don’t care,” Ven said. “You’re not having any more.”

On the other side of Ven, Vanitas casually sipped his drink and said, “Let him do it. If he pukes, then he deserves it.”

Ven glared at the other apprentice. “And then we’ll have to clean up, so no thanks.”

Vanitas snickered and turned back to his drink . . . only to find that it had been hijacked by a certain someone. Aqua, upon seeing that Vanitas’ eyes were upon her, immediately pushed the drink back to its original position – but not before stealing the little umbrella that had come with it.

Vanitas’ fingers twitched as he thought about snatching the umbrella back, but then he decided it was too girly anyways and stole the hot dog Riku had offered to Terra instead. He ate it even quicker than Terra had, smacking his lips afterwards.

“Enjoying yourself?” Ven asked.

Vanitas shrugged. “This crap’s a lot better than the stuff Xehanort tries to make. Apparently, he’s almost as bad at cooking as you are.”

Ven bristled. “I’m not a bad cook.”

“Yes, you are,” Terra and Aqua said.

Ven pouted.

* * *

“Come on Terra, throw it!”

Ven ran backwards down the beach, Aqua and Riku at his heels. He was facing the nearby figure of Terra, whose body was twisted at the waist as he prepared to throw the Frisbee.

“Come on Terra, you can do it!”

Terra gritted his teeth and with a massive surge of energy, swung his arm, releasing the Frisbee at the end of its arc.

The Frisbee promptly embedded itself in the ground a mere foot away from Terra.

Ven hid his sigh and stopped running. Riku similarly wilted in disappointment. Aqua, well she had only been chasing them and probably hadn’t even noticed the Frisbee, so she smacked purposely into Ven. Before Terra had time to correct his mistake, Sora ran out of nowhere and picked the Frisbee up, tossing it afterwards with a perfectly flat angle.

Riku went for it and Aqua, seeing what he was doing, chased him. She ended up tackling Riku as he caught the Frisbee, and the two fell to the ground, wrestling over it. Sora quickly ran over to join them but Terra stayed behind, frustration evident on his face.

From his lawn chair, Vanitas jeered, “Nice throw, Terra.”

Ven scowled and marched over to the three fighting kids. Easily, he pried the Frisbee away from them, and then aimed it directly at Vanitas’ chest.

He walked over to Vanitas, who was coughing violently from the impact of the Frisbee. “Can you give it a rest?” he demanded. “We’re supposed to be having fun today.”

“Yes, and this is fun for me.” Vanitas rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to play with them, so what else do you want from me?”

“Just ignore them like you did before,” Ven snapped. “Since you obviously don’t care for them.”

Easily, Vanitas said, “That’s right, I don’t.”

Ven stared at him, shocked. True, he had led Vanitas directly to that answer, but Ven still hadn’t expected him to be so blunt. Actually, it wasn’t even that. It was more that Ven loved his friends so much, that he hadn’t ever considered it possible that someone else wouldn’t.

His perception of the world utterly changed, Ven muttered, “Well, knock it off.”

“You can’t tell me what to do!” Vanitas shouted after him.

Indeed, Vanitas continued his tirade of snide comments, until Ven had the idea to make a sandcastle with the kids. At that point, the construction of the castle consumed them, until Vanitas’ increasingly rude comments became nothing more than background noise. On his chair, Vanitas stirred impatiently, irritated that he was being ignored.

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “I like being by myself anyways.”

Meanwhile, Terra was lecturing Riku and Sora on how to build a castle.

“You can’t put a tower here,” he said, brushing away the small pile of sand Sora had gathered there. “That’s not right.”

“How would you know?” Riku asked suspiciously.

“Because I live in a castle, duh!”

Sora gasped. “You do? Can we visit?”

“Can they, Ven?” Aqua asked, looking up at him hopefully.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he answered cautiously. Upon seeing their disappointed looks, he hastily said, fingers crossed behind his back, “But I’ll ask the Master.”

“You have a Master?” Riku repeated. “Are you actually a dog or something?”

Terra shrugged. “Well, he carries leashes around.”

Ven said nothing as the children giggled.

* * *

The small sandcastle stood alone on the beach as nearby, its creators were busy having a water-fight. Thus, none of them noticed the black boots that steadily moved closer to the castle. They paused one step away, their owner’s shadow darkening the castle’s form, and then Vanitas lifted his foot and kicked the castle over, grinning wickedly. Eagerly he turned, awaiting the furious reaction that would follow.

But none came. The others were too busy splashing each other. He growled and marched back to his chair, falling into it. He didn’t like this place. It was too sunny and bright, too noisy and _would they stop laughing already?_

If he wasn’t under orders to behave himself, he would have unleashed an army of unversed and been done with it. Instead though, he crossed his arms tightly and glared at the blinding sun. He couldn’t see the others, but he could certainly hear them and his already frazzled nerves twisted even tighter.

“Stupid Ven and his stupid friends.” His arms unknotted and his hands slammed down on the armrests, gripping them tightly. He kept his chin pointed skywards but once in a while, his gaze would wander to where the others were playing.

He groaned. Would they _please_ stop laughing?

* * *

The three natives of the Land of Departure were huddled around a bonfire. Sora and Riku had gone home by now and Vanitas . . . well, he was still sulking in his chair, refusing to come near the fire. His head was firmly turned away, and his jaw seemed to tighten as time passed.

“Here you go,” Ven said, passing Aqua a stick with an impaled marshmallow. She stuck it into the flames, where it immediately caught on fire.

“You’re not doing it right,” Terra huffed. He snatched Aqua’s stick from her, ignoring her protests.

Not taking his eyes off his own stick, Ven said, “Terra, you might want to show her instead of doing it for her.”

Terra rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He stuck a new marshmallow on Aqua’s stick and set to showing her how to roast it.

The fire crackled and popped. Across the waves, the sun was dipping beneath the horizon, and the ocean looked like a sheet of glittering diamonds. It was just them (and Vanitas) on the beach; there weren’t even any animals. Ven breathed in the sweet air, letting it tickle his lungs. He released it again and ruffled Aqua’s hair for no real reason.

Apparently, she wasn’t too fond of that, for she stood up and ran away.

“Aqua?”

Luckily, she didn’t run far. She stopped at Vanitas’ chair, waiting patiently. Eventually, he looked at her, saying, “What do you want?”

She held out her stick with its marshmallow. “Do you want it?” she asked.

Vanitas stared at her. “This is a joke, right?”

Aqua shook her head.

Vanitas reached out, and then plucked the stick from her and threw it onto the ground. Aqua did nothing for a second, but then ran back to Ven, burying her face in his side. Ven draped an arm around her, and then levelled a poisonous stare at Vanitas.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s make another fire somewhere else.”

He led the children away, and Vanitas was left alone with the darkness.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.


	23. Exposition

Eraqus wrestled with his apprentice, whose scowl and constant fidgeting said nothing more than that he didn’t want to be there. Unfortunately for Terra, however, Eraqus and Xehanort really needed to run these tests, which meant that today, Terra’s desires had to be ignored. Still, the boy gave them no illusion of cooperation and howled the entire way to the examination room.

His arms locked underneath Terra’s armpits, Eraqus dragged his apprentice into the room. He lifted the kicking boy into the air, and set him down on a long, metal table. Then, with Terra still squirming, Eraqus froze him with a Stop spell andhooked the electrodes up to Terra’s body.

Meanwhile, Xehanort did the same thing his apprentice would have done: watch from the sidelines.

No sooner than Eraqus had placed all the electrodes and turned his back did the spell ceased. Seeing this, Eraqus sighed and brought out the ultimate weapon before Terra ruined all his hard work.

“Terra,” he said, “if you cooperate for a few minutes, you can have a cookie.”

Terra stopped pulling at the electrodes. “Three cookies,” he demanded.

“One.”

“Three.”

“How about two?”

“Three!” Terra insisted.

“Two, and that’s final.”

Terra peered at him suspiciously, before slumping over. Eraqus patted him on the head.

“If we can now get started,” Xehanort said gruffly. He was facing a series of monitors, and the single keyboard went clickedly-clack as he typed into it. Trusting Terra to keep his side of the bargain, Eraqus joined him, studying the screens closely. What was on them was a series of graphs and number, gibberish to any everyday person, and well, to Eraqus himself. Yes, he understood some of it, but others were complete nonsense to him, though he expected they weren’t to Xehanort.

“What do you see?” Eraqus asked.

“I can see that the Fountain’s magic is still there.” Xehanort frowned. “What I cannot see is why.”

Eraqus sighed. “Same as Aqua, then.”

From behind them, Terra said, “Can I have my cookies now?”

Xehanort gave Eraqus a nod, and then the Master removed the electrodes from Terra’s body and walked him out of the room. Terra was willing to hold his hand for this part, lulled into a rare serenity by the promise of cookies. On the way, they passed by the room the other apprentices were in, and Ven quickly left the room to follow them.

“Master, what was that screaming earlier?” he asked.

“Just Terra,” Eraqus answered.

“Oh.” Ven looked away, biting his lip. “Did the tests hurt?”

“Certainly not,” Eraqus said. “Terra was just throwing a tantrum.”

The relief on Ven’s face was palpable. He turned to Terra, ruffled his hair and said, “You really need to work on your temper.”

Terra tried to bite his hand.

Ven smiled. “Well, if that’s all, I’ll head back to the others.”

He did so, walking back through the halls to his room, only to find it empty. Confused, he scanned the place, even checking underneath his bed and in the closet.

Scratching his head, Ven wondered aloud, “Where are they?”

* * *

Seated in his office, Eraqus looked across his desk at his fellow Master and asked, “What conclusions have you drawn from this?”

Xehanort sneered, “I would think it was obvious. Take a look at these numbers.”

He slid a piece of paper over to Eraqus, upon which three sets of numbers were circled. One set was for Terra, one for Aqua, and the other was for a dog they had dunked into the Fountain. Eraqus looked at the numbers, studied them closely, and then looked up at Xehanort in bewilderment.

Xehanort rapped his fingers against the desk and impatiently explained, “These numbers are a measurement of the strength of the magic affecting your students. See here: the magic affecting Aqua is stronger than the magic affecting Terra, and the magic in him is stronger than the magic in the dog.”

“So the magic affects humans more so than animals, reasonable.” Eraqus frowned, sensing that something didn’t quite fit. “But the dog reverted back to its regular age around the same time the villagers claimed they did.”

“If they had accurately measured time,” Xehanort said. “But I think it is certain that no one has ever been affected as severely as your apprentices. Rather than reaching its peak and then fading as it should, the spell has stalled at its strongest point. Something is keeping it active.”

Eraqus groaned, head in his hands, elbows on his desk. “And what could that possibly be?”

“I’m not certain,” Xehanort said. “But I will look into it.”

Leaving Eraqus in his office, Xehanort walked back to his room, intending to read through some of the tomes he had brought with him. Along the way, he passed by Vanitas and Aqua, the latter of whom smiled at him innocently. He didn’t even notice them, lost in his own musings, and he opened the door to his room on autopilot.

He stepped inside and froze.

Drawings of him, the same drawings that Eraqus had sent him in the mail, had been pasted all over his room.

For a couple of minutes, Xehanort simply drank it in. Then his fists clenched.

“Eraqus,” he growled.


	24. Kitty?

Vanitas awoke with a start. It was early afternoon and he was alone in his room, so he really wasn’t sure what had woken him. With a grumble, he closed his eyes again and burrowed into the warmth of his bed.

Then it came: a tight feeling around his midsection. His eyes snapped open, and he lashed out naturally, but found no one there. He sat up, staring around in confusion, and the feeling came again. It wasn’t as vivid as he assumed it would be, but distant, separate from him. Scowling in irritation, he waited for the feeling to come again and when it did, he found the tendril attaching it to his mind and traced it to its source.

His eyes widened. _I’m going to kill those two . . ._

He was so annoyed that he didn’t bother to run through the halls, but teleported right to Terra’s door. As a whoosh signalled the dismissal of the portal, the laughter from inside the room died, replaced quickly by furious whispers. Vanitas ripped open the door and stormed inside, a figurative thundercloud following him. Terra and Aqua looked back at him, seated on the ground against the closet.

“Where is it?” Vanitas demanded.

Terra and Aqua exchanged a look. “What are you talking about?” Terra asked.

“You know _exactly_ what I mean.” Vanitas stalked forwards, making Aqua take shelter behind Terra. “Now tell me where it is before I shake it out of you!”

Terra puffed out his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy.”

“Open the closet,” Vanitas said.

That wiped the confidence from Terra’s face. “No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I. . .” Terra said that slowly, clearly at loss for an answer. “Because I don’t want to.”

“Oh, really?” Vanitas held his hand out, palm up, and let a dark flame take form. “Then I’ll have to just go through you.”

Aqua cringed, looking to Terra for reassurance, which he gave her. “You won’t do it,” Terra said. “You can’t –”

And without regret, Vanitas proved Terra wrong.

The two kids successfully dodged Vanitas’ attack, leaving the closet clear. Vanitas opened it without a pause, revealing the traumatized flood inside.

“There you are,” he muttered, reaching for it . . .

But Aqua pounced and grabbed the unversed, pulling it to her chest, and Vanitas felt that squeezing around his midsection again.

“No!” she cried, swinging the struggling flood away from Vanitas. “Don’t take him!”

“Yeah, he’s ours!” Terra leapt in front of the two, arms held wide as he shielded them.

Vanitas rubbed his head, half out of aggravation and half because the unversed kept crying out for help through their mental link. “That thing is not your pet!” he snapped. “Now, give it here.”

“Yes he is,” Terra said.

Aqua put her own two cents in. “He’s our kitty!”

“Kitty?” Vanitas nearly strangled her right there. “How does that look anything like a cat to you?”

Terra shrugged. “Well, it’s not a dog,” he said if that was a perfectly valid reason.

Vanitas took an aggressive step forwards. “Give it to me before I kill you!”

“No!”

Terra charged at Vanitas, only for the larger boy to easily toss him aside. That left Aqua and the flood, and she crawled into the corner of the closet, still squeezing the unversed painfully. She looked like she was about to cry, but Vanitas didn’t care. He pried her arms loose, and the flood scrambled out of her arms, perching on top of Vanitas’ head.

“Blue!” Aqua exclaimed, reaching for the unversed.

From behind, Terra tried to jump and grab the unversed, causing it to whine and dig its claws into Vanitas’ scalp.

Between the two children shouting, the flood’s sounds of distress and the claws poking his head, Vanitas could barely concentrate. The noise built and swirled around him, until Vanitas released all his rage in a huge roar.

Silence followed.

The flood tried to creep back to the kids, deciding that they were the safest option after all.

But Vanitas didn’t let it. He grabbed it by the throat, and then marched out of the room, followed by his little entourage.

“We’ll take good care of him,” Terra was saying, Aqua nodding beside him.

Vanitas said, “No. No way. Now scram before I get really mad.”

“But we’ll take good care of him. We’ll play with him, and feed him . . .”

“Please,” Aqua said.

“. . . and he can sleep in our bed and train with us . . .”

“Please, Vanitas.”

“. . . and we’ll take him to other worlds and . . .”

“ _Please!_ ”

“Enough!” The kids went silent in the wake of Vanitas’ shout. He took a few deep breaths, nearly hyperventilating in his efforts to remain calm. “What would your Master say?”

A pause. Then Terra smiled a little too widely and claimed, “He would say it’s okay.”

Vanitas glared at him. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

Sensing they were losing this fight, Terra and Aqua stood next to each other and gave him their saddest smile. “Please,” they begged.

“No.”

And Vanitas walked into his room and closed the door on them.

Alone, safe, he let the unversed slip to the floor, where it shuddered and rubbed against his legs as if it was trying to wash off the children’s scent. He paid it no mind, climbing back into bed in order to reclaim the nap he had been deprived of.

The flood stared up at him from the floor, head cocked to one side.

With a sigh, Vanitas snapped his fingers. The flood leapt onto his bed, curling up on his chest like a dog. Vanitas patted it and then pulled the covers over them.

He smirked. They were right: it really was a bit like a cat.


	25. Under the Stars

Aqua and Terra stood outside, staring at the massive tree before them. It rose high above them, the tip disappearing into the blinding light of the sun. The smooth bark was dark and glistened slightly, as if it had just endured a rainstorm.

“Terra,” Aqua said, “are you sure about this?”

Terra nodded absently. “It’s going to be great!” he crowed. “This is _so_ much better than that other tree.”

“Where does it end?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He glanced sideways at her and gave her a reassuring smile. “Guess we’ll find out.”

With that last declaration, Terra leapt at the tree. He easily clambered onto the first branch, but Aqua required a little more work to get up there. Eventually, he ended up hauling her up, and then they began to climb in earnest.

Aqua’s fear died the higher they got, until she was consumed by the same excitement that spurred Terra on. Soon, branches were being swapped so quickly it was a blur, and with each minute that passed, they lingered a little farther from the tree’s sturdy trunk. Terra, higher up than her, came across a cluster of pinecones and with a mischievous grin, he plucked one from the rest.

Aqua yelped as the first pinecone collided with her head. “Terra!”

“Aw, come on,” he jeered, bouncing a cone on the flat of his palm. “It doesn’t hurt that much. See?”

Just to prove his point, he threw a pinecone in the air and let it drop on his head. The next one he tossed at Aqua.

“Stop it!”

Terra rolled his eyes. “You’re such a baby,” he said, but he did stop.

Sulking, Aqua turned her eyes to the horizon, immediately brightening up when she saw what was there. “Terra look, a rainbow!”

“Hmm?” Terra twisted around, mouthing forming an ‘o’ as he saw she was right. “Awesome!”

“There’s treasure at the end of a rainbow,” Aqua said.

“Yeah, I heard that, too.”

Terra and Aqua looked at each other, and then started to climb down the tree again.

After all, the only thing better than climbing stuff was shiny things.

* * *

“It was this way!” Terra said, pushing through branches and foliage as he hunted down the elusive end of the rainbow. Aqua was close behind, nibbling on her thumb. They pushed through one last sheet of greenery and then tumbled out into a glade. It wasn’t terribly big, smaller than the training fields in fact, but unlike them, it was filled with white and pink flowers.

“They’re so pretty!” Aqua said, falling to her knees so that she could grab some. The petals left pink and white smears on her hands and giggling, she tried to put some in Terra’s hair.

“Hey, quit it!” He swatted her hand away. “That’s a _girl_ colour.”

Aqua scowled. “I bet Ven won’t care,” she sniffed. “I’m going to give them to him.”

With a bunch of flowers in her hand, she turned towards the woods as if she was going to run back to Ven right then and there. But Terra’s hand clamped down on her wrist so quickly that he didn’t even realize he had moved.

“Terra?” She looked at him uncertainly, sensing the tension in the air.

Terra blinked. He wasn’t sure why he had done that. There was nothing wrong with her giving flowers to Ven . . . only he just really, really didn’t like that idea. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there was a spark, briefly reviving a life he had since discarded. But then that was swept away and with a confused shake of his head, he let her go.

“I don’t want you to give them to him,” he muttered.

“Why not?”

“Because!” He stomped his foot. “You don’t have to give them to him. You can give them to me.”

“But you don’t want them,” Aqua said.

Terra replied, “I just don’t want them in my hair.”

Aqua still didn’t seem to understand what was going on but with a shrug, she held the flowers out to him. Terra took them carefully, staring at them afterwards in bafflement. Why had he wanted these again?

“Do you think Vanitas would like some?” she suddenly asked.

Terra held back a growl. He didn’t want her giving them to him either. But on the other hand, he knew Vanitas definitely didn’t want any . . .

Which is why he said, “You should leave them in his room as a surprise. But you’ll need a lot more than that.”

Without a second thought, he began plucking more flowers to place in Vanitas’ room. When he ran out of hands, he started stuffing them down his shirt, oblivious to how they were making his chest a patchwork of white and pink.

“And we need some for the Master!” Aqua announced.

“Okay.” Surprisingly, the aggressive reaction he had towards Aqua giving them to Ven or Vanitas didn’t apply to the Master. Instead, he readily put more in his shirt.

Sometime later, he was interrupted in his gathering by Aqua again. She was pointing up at the sky, standing on her tiptoes. The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but it was in the process of, and there were already a few stars in the sky. Unconsciously, Terra stepped forwards so that he was right under them.

“Whoa . . .”

“They’re even prettier than the rainbow!” Aqua said.

Oh yeah, the rainbow. They’d forgotten about that. But it didn’t matter much, as he agreed with her. There was something special, something brilliant about the stars that the rainbow lacked. He fell back onto his back, joining Aqua who was already on the ground. Side by side, they watched the stars together.

“Master says stars are really the hearts of other worlds,” Terra said.

“But there’s so many of them,” Aqua said.

“Yeah, there’s lots of worlds out there.” He turned his head, grinning at her. “And I’m going to explore them all.”

She looked back at him, a crestfallen expression on her face. “By yourself?”

Immediately, he said, “You’re coming, too.”

Aqua’s face didn’t change. “But you’re older than me. You’ll be a Master before I will.”

“Then I’ll wait for you,” Terra said, taking her hand within his own. “We’ll explore the worlds together, I promise.”

Aqua smiled at him. “Promise?”

He smiled back. “Promise.”


	26. Lost

Master Eraqus yawned as he stood behind the open doors to the castle. Over the black forest that lined the land, a gold and pink sky stared down on him. Further up, the bright light gave way to darkness, although a few stars twinkled in the dusk. There was no moon out yet and the sun was hidden behind the trees, so it was an otherwise featureless sky, though that did not dampened his spirits.

He breathed in deeply, savouring the faint scent of pine. It was a gentle, mild night and there were fireflies fluttering above the grass. Apart from them, there was very little movement, as if sleep had claimed the entire world. Even the crickets he heard sounded half-awake.

“Master!”

Ven’s shout came to him on a breeze, drifting through his tranquil mind. He turned without alarm, his heartbeat strong but calm.

“What is it?” he asked.

Those words had been spoken softly, but it didn’t seem to stop Ven from hearing them. Still, the apprentice didn’t answer his Master’s question, as all his energy was going to other muscles as he tore across the grass. With his clothes waving behind him and blurred motion of his legs, it seemed as if Ven didn’t touch the ground.

He skidded to stop at the bottom of the castle’s steps. “Master, I can’t find them.”

Eraqus frowned. “Have you checked the training grounds?” When Ven nodded, he said, “What about the river?”

“Oh, no. I’ll go look right now!”

Ven scampered off, and Eraqus smiled at his retreating back. What a surprise it was, to see Ven - who was ordinarily so childish and irresponsible – step up to the plate like this. And so readily, too. The situation had come upon them so suddenly, but Ven had snapped into his new role without a hitch. Had the boy secretly been this mature all along, or was it something else? Was it simply that Ven loved his friends so much that changing for them was not a hassle, but an honour?

With that train of thought came melancholy and, dare he say, jealously. For Eraqus had no such relationships; his list of friends was rather slim, in fact. Perhaps, once upon a time, he and Xehanort could have been that close . . .

He shook his head, cutting those thoughts off. There was no use for dwelling on the past.

Ven returned, but no little bodies were following him. “They’re not there either!” he exclaimed. His eyes were wide like a cornered animal, and his limbs were twitching with excess energy.

“They couldn’t have left the world,” Eraqus said. “Are you sure that they are not nearby?”

Ven threw his hands into the air. “I’ve looked everywhere. They’re not around!”

Eraqus sighed. “Very well.” He summoned Master Keeper in its glider form. “It’ll be easier to spot them from above.”

Ven summoned Wayward Wind, and then Master and apprentice took off into the air, unaware of the golden eyes watching them from a window.

* * *

“Terra, I want to go home.”

Terra bit his lip and intentionally flexed his arms, stopping them from shivering. “We’re almost there,” he said to her. “Just a little further.”

That’s what he hoped at least, because in all honesty, he was lost. He’d lost sense of direction in the glade, and had blindly led Aqua back into the woods in hopes that he had chosen the right way. After a long time of walking though, he’d come to the conclusion that he’d chosen wrong. He had tried to lead them back to the glade so they could try again, but he hadn’t been able to find it.

He helped Aqua over a rotting log, and then looked around helplessly. He didn’t recognize this place. He hadn’t recognized anything for a while. Of course, this could have easily been the same place they had been in before, and he just couldn’t see it. Everywhere he looked there were trees, trees and more trees. Not at all helpful.

“Terra . . .”

He shushed her, but the damage was done. She grabbed his arm and pressed against him, clinging tight. Her bangs crossed over her eyes, but Terra was certain that she was tearing up. Wait, there were already wet trails down her face; she must have started crying without him noticing. As another tear made its way down her cheek, his chest tightened with panic. He turned his head, unable to look at her.

“Look, we just have to walk for a little longer, okay?” he said, voice wavering. “Then we’ll be home, okay? Okay?”

Aqua sniffed as she started to shiver.

Terra stiffened. It wasn’t that cold was it? As he thought that, a chilly wind seemed to rush past him. Unconsciously, he pulled her closer to him.

“I want to go home,” Aqua repeated.

“I know. We just need to go a little farther.”

He pulled her along, picking up speed even as it became harder to breathe. Soon enough, he was moving too fast for her, and she tripped, curling up on the ground afterwards with what seemed to be no intention of standing again.

“Come on, Aqua,” he said. “Get up.”

Aqua stared up at him with watery eyes. “I want Master.”

“I know!” he snapped. “Just get up!”

As he yelled at her, there was a rustle in the bushes behind her. He froze, imagination throwing itself into high gear. It wasn’t too off; the bushes rustled again and something – a _monster_ – stepped out. It kind of looked like a gorilla, but it was coloured red and black, and had a weird symbol on its chest. Most importantly though, its eyes were red, telling Terra that it was evil.

Aqua reacted before he did, springing off the ground and into him. The two of them scrambled to their feet again and ran, neither looking back.

They ran for four, maybe five seconds, before a dark figure intercepted them.

“Got you!” A strong hand wrapped around Terra’s upper arm, jerking him to a halt. At the same time, another hand had grabbed Aqua. Still panicking, Terra twisted and tried to bite his captor, failing when the person holding him shook him roughly.

He was pulled to another position and then yellow eyes peered into his own.

“Try to bite me again, and I’ll throw you off a cliff,” Vanitas growled.

Walking now, Vanitas tugged Terra and Aqua along without mercy. “You two are in _so_ much trouble,” he said. “And what the hell in in your shirt, Terra?”

“Nothing,” Terra mumbled, touching his flower-stuffed shirt self-consciously.

Aqua said, “There’s a monster . . .”

“Is there?” Vanitas didn’t sound very interested. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

Nearby, as if it had heard him, the monster suddenly dissolved into mist, its mission complete.


	27. Found

Ven skimmed over the trees on his glider, heart dropping a little more into his stomach as the sunlight waned. Eraqus had claimed that it would be easier to spot the kids from the air. However, what the Master had failed to remember was that there were hundreds of trees, branches and leaves. At most, Ven could only catch snatches of the forest floor and he was beginning to wonder if searching on foot would be better instead.

He brought his glider to a halt, looking over the wide expanse of land he had to search, and then search again just to be safe. He could no longer see Eraqus, which didn’t bode well. With a deep sigh, he started flying again, eyes fixed on the world below.

Consequently, he didn’t notice Vanitas cross into his path, not until the two collided. With an ‘oof’, Ven fell forwards onto Vanitas’ glider, his own hovering uncertainly in the air without a passenger. The extra weight was enough to send Vanitas’ glider into a downwards spiral, up until Vanitas literally kicked him off, at least.

Wayward Wind swooped underneath him, saving Ven from a messy landing. Scowling, he glared at Vanitas who met his gaze calmly.

“Can’t you go bother someone else?” Ven spat. “I’m a little busy right now.”

“That so?” Arms crossed behind his head, it almost looked like Vanitas was leaning against an invisible wall. “Are you too busy to hear where the rugrats are?”

“You found them?” Ven said uncertainly.

Vanitas chuckled. “What can I say? I’m not completely useless like you are.”

In light of Vanitas’ deed, Ven chose to ignore that last statement. Instead, wearily he said, “Thanks. I had no idea where they had gone off to.”

“They were prowling around the woods,” Vanitas said with a shrug.

“Really? But the woods are so big . . . How did you find them?”

Vanitas twitched. His arms uncrossed, and he held them stiffly at his sides instead. “Lucky guess,” he answered flatly, tone making it clear that was the end of this particular subject.

Ven didn’t push him. “Guess it’s time to head back, then.”

* * *

Eraqus stared at his two small apprentices, tapping his foot. “Well?”

Aqua immediately looked to Terra for guidance. For his part, the boy had plastered a perfectly blank expression upon his face. “Well what?” he asked.

“Don’t play with me, Terra. You know what I mean.”

Terra scuffed his feet, staring at the ground. “We didn’t mean to get lost,” he murmured.

“But you still did,” Eraqus said. “The rule about staying close to the castle exists for a reason, as does the rule that you tell Ventus or myself if you are going somewhere.”

Terra blushed, the muscles in his jaw jumping with childish anger. Still, to his credit, he held his tongue. Aqua, on the other hand, was standing at his side, looking lost and confused as she sucked on her thumb. She wasn’t really the object of this rebuke; she truly was too young to understand what she did was wrong. Terra though, he was old enough to know, and Eraqus suspected that he had encouraged her to wander off.

Eraqus said, “Go to your room, both of you, and _stay there_. I’ll speak to you later.”

Heads bowed in submission, they shuffled past him. Eraqus watched them until they were gone, and then turned back to the castle’s doors, awaiting Vanitas and Ventus’ arrival.

It happened soon enough. The doors slammed and then the two were standing there, Ventus looking profusely relieved. He ran up to his Master while Vanitas followed with a sort of saunter, twirling his keyblade carelessly.

“Are they okay?” Ventus demanded, not even bothering to greet Eraqus.

“They are fine,” Eraqus said. Ventus grinned with relief and nearly darted away, but Eraqus’ hand on his shoulder stopped him. “I hope you are not going to see them.”

“Of course I am!” Ventus blinked, the meaning behind Eraqus’ words hitting him. “Why don’t you want me to?”

Ventus may have been oblivious, but Vanitas caught on. With a harsh bark of laughter, he said, “The twerps are grounded!”

Ventus whirled around. “Hey!”

Vanitas shrugged. “I found them; I think I earned the right to call them that once.”

Reluctantly it seemed, Ventus backed down.

“Just leave them alone for the moment being,” Eraqus said. “You can speak to them tomorrow.”

Ven said, “Fine.”

With a nod, Eraqus walked off, intending to see to his younger apprentices. Ven watched him leave, part of him wondering how difficult it would be to sneak into their rooms . . .

* * *

Terra was lying flat on his bed when Eraqus walked in. The boy’s arms were stretched to either side, legs not quite touching as if he were trying to make a snow angel. His head turned lazily, revealing its bored face. With a loud exhale, Terra swung himself into a sitting position, his oddly fat shirt swaying.

“Terra, do you know what you did wrong?” Eraqus asked.

“I wandered off without permission,” Terra recited in a monotone. “Then I got lost.”

Eraqus stared at the sullen boy, and then sat down on the bed next to him. “Do you know _why_ it was wrong?”

It seemed like Terra was trying hard not to roll his eyes. “Because I got lost.”

“You could have been hurt,” he corrected gently. “There are lots of dangerous things in the woods.”

“I was fine.” Terra insisted, tone hard. “I just got lost.”

Sensing that he was going up against a wall here, Eraqus quickly switched tracks. “ _Aqua_ could have been hurt.”

That caught Terra’s attention. “We were fine,” he repeated, but this time he didn’t look Eraqus in the eye.

Eraqus rubbed Terra’s shoulder. “She’s not as strong as you, Terra. She can’t handle what you can.”

“We were fine!” Terra was nearly shouting now. “I was protecting her!”

“You can’t always be there to protect her.” He paused for a moment; this felt terribly familiar. “What if you had looked away for a moment, and then she was gone? Then what would you do?”

“Find her,” Terra mumbled, but he had pulled his knees to his chest and Eraqus could almost see the gears turning in his head.

Eraqus patted his back. “You’re grounded, Terra. I hope you understand.”

Terra shrugged listlessly. It was as good as a ‘yes’ that he was going to get.

“One more thing: what in the worlds do you have in your shirt?”

* * *

In contrast to Terra, Aqua appeared to be having a great time in her room. She was standing – not sitting – on her desk, giggling as she leapt off it into a pile of her adult-self’s clothes. She smiled brightly at her Master’s approach, and quickly retreated under the desk with a shirt that she had apparently deemed her favourite.

“Aqua, can you come out?”

She rolled out, staring up at him afterwards with her head cocked to one side like a puppy. To her delight, Eraqus picked her up and set her on the bed, where he took a seat next to her.

“You and Terra wandered off without telling me, today,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“That was a very bad thing you did.”

Aqua shook her head. “We weren’t running away. We were coming home.”

“That may be,” Eraqus said, “but I didn’t know where you were.”

“But we were coming back!”

He rubbed his forehead, racking his brain for a way to explain this to her. Eventually, he settled on: “Aqua, how would you feel if you woke up one day, everyone was gone, and you couldn’t find them?”

She frowned as she thought over the question. “Sad.” She quickly asked, “Are you going away?”

“No, I’m not going anywhere,” he told her. “So, you would feel sad. Would you feel bad, too?”

Aqua nodded.

He continued. “That’s how Ventus and I felt when you two wandered off. We felt very bad and very sad.”

Aqua seemed to tuck into herself, becoming smaller. “Sorry.”

He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’ll forgive you if you don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

“Good. Now can I have a hug?”


	28. Vanitas Saves the Day!

A gentle whirring sound was floating out of the mostly empty room, drifting through the halls as softly as a feather on the wind. It sounded faintly like a bee’s hum, or the sort buzzing of a motor. Or, to be both accurate and true, it sounded exactly like a snore.

Past the open door and inside the sparsely-furnished room, Xehanort was dead to the world. Lying flat on his back, it was one of the few times that he wasn’t slouching and had someone held a stethoscope up to his spine, they would have heard it sigh in relief. It was a fairly uninteresting sight - at least, that’s what it would have sounded like. For the two children peering into his room however, it was fascinating.

“Is he really asleep?” Terra whispered.

“I think so,” Aqua said.

Timidly, they tiptoed into the visiting Master’s room. Neither of them was particularly fond of Xehanort; in fact, between his yellow eyes and creepy scare, they unanimously agreed that he was terrifying. However, since Xehanort was asleep, he was currently harmless, and sometimes terrified was just a synonym for curious.

From behind, Terra slammed his hands down on Aqua’s shoulders, making her jump. “I bet he keeps a skeleton in his closet,” he whispered into her ear.

Aqua shivered. “Really?”

Terra nodded, a wide grin on his face.

“I don’t think we should be here,” Aqua murmured as Terra tramped over to Xehanort’s bed.

“Come on!” Terra said. “Do you want to look at him or not?”

On one hand, she didn’t think this was a good idea, but on the other hand, she really did . . . Besides, Terra was here. He would protect her. So, with that thought in mind, she waddled over to Terra’s side, and the two peeked over the bed at the sleeping Master.

“He’s so _bald!_ ” Aqua said.

“Yeah, I know,” Terra said gravely. Without hesitation, he hopped onto the bed next to Xehanort’s head, and squinting, waved his hands in front of the Master’s closed eyes.

“Okay, he’s sleeping for sure,” Terra said.

“Where did his hair go?” Aqua asked. “Everyone has hair so where did his go?”

Terra sighed, but decided to play along. “I don’t know. Go ask Master.”

Aqua looked around the room, an idea lighting up her eyes. “Maybe he hid it!”

With that, she began to search, squeezing underneath the bed and dragging out Xehanort’s luggage. She rooted through the contents, tossing them to the side when no hair revealed itself. Terra joined her soon afterwards out of curiosity, and between the two of them, Xehanort’s belongings were strewn all over the place.

Aqua slumped against a wall, scowling with all the rage her five year-old face could manage. “It’s not here . . . Maybe it’s in his closet!”

Terra rolled his eyes but said nothing.

The two immediately ran to the closet, ripping it open. There were a couple of outfits there on hangers, which looked suspiciously identical to the clothes Xehanort always wore. They tore the outfits off their hangers, bringing them down to their level. While Aqua looked through the pockets for Xehanort’s secret stash of hair, Terra wriggled into a set of clothes, checking himself out in the closet’s mirror. The clothes were twice as big as him, but his opinion, they still worked.

“Look, Aqua! I’m Xehanort.” His face took on a dull, grotesque look. “I’m going to slouch and be lazy.”

Aqua’s giggle was cut off by a hiss of, “What in the worlds are you doing?!”

The two children froze, and then simultaneously looked at Vanitas.

“Nothing,” Aqua said.

“That so? I -” Just then, Vanitas looked – really looked - at what Terra was wearing. “Oh man, this is too good to pass up,” he said. “Terra, stay like that for a second.”

Vanitas disappeared in a flash, and a few seconds later, he was back with a camera in hand.

“Okay, now pretend to be Xehanort!” he said.

Terra copied his face from before, and Vanitas snapped a few pictures. Snickering, the boy held up the camera and said, “Now to find a photocopier . . .”

“Do you know where his hair is?” Aqua asked.

“He doesn’t have any.” Vanitas did a double-take at the room. “Is that why everything’s so messy? Xehanort’s going to kill you.”

Terra and Aqua exchanged a glance, realizing the truth of that.

Vanitas clapped his hands on their shoulders and said, “Don’t worry, I’m here to save the day. You see, he won’t be so angry at you if you make him laugh a little . . .”

* * *

Xehanort was furious. He wasn’t sure if it was the children or some unversed that had rampaged through his room, but whatever it was, he was going to make them pay!

He sat in sullen silence at the dinner table. The aura radiating from him was so dark and dangerous that Eraqus and Ventus had seated themselves as far away as possible. They watched Xehanort warily, seemingly unable to take their eyes off him even for a moment. Vanitas, on the other hand, was smirking without a care in the world.

“Is everything alright?” Eraqus asked.

“Certainly,” Xehanort growled, making the other Master and his apprentice flinch.

Eraqus cleared his throat. “Well, we should eat then, yes?”

Xehanort grunted and turned to his food, not oblivious to how the other two were still watching him. He was oblivious however, to how Vanitas waved at one of the doorways.

There was a flurry of motion. Somewhere in the scuffle, a glass was knocked over and when the dust cleared, a serious-looking Terra was standing in the middle of the table, wooden keyblade raised.

Wait a second.

_Were those his clothes the boy was wearing?_

“I’m Xehanort,” Terra announced, “and I’m going to take over the world with darkness and stuff!”

Before anyone (save a hysterically laughing Vanitas) could react, Aqua jumped onto the table too, also wearing a set of Xehanort’s giant clothes.

She said, “Yep, and then I’m going to make everyone bald so I don’t feel left out!”

Vanitas was still laughing, but to Xehanort, it seemed like the entire world went silent. His vision was tinged with red as he narrowed in on the two children mocking him.

Suddenly, Terra turned to Eraqus. “Did we do a good job, Master?”

Xehanort’s eyes snapped to his former friend. Ah, so this had been Eraqus’ idea. For his part, Eraqus looked absolutely shocked and mortified, but Xehanort wasn’t fooled.

He grinned viciously. When he killed Eraqus, he was going to make sure it was _very_ painfully.


	29. Return of Exposition

Seated at his desk, Eraqus looked from one image to the other, and then back again. Earlier today, he’d run a foreign magic scan on his two deaged apprentices, hoping to find some clue about how exactly the Youth spell functioned. The results that he received were unusual, not matching the wavy form of a Sleep spell, the chaotic spikey image of a Stop spell, or any of the other spells he had archived. But that wasn’t to say it was completely different than anything he had ever seen before.

Actually, the results of the scan looked _identical_ to his apprentice’s magical cores.

A magical core: a person’s internal source of magical energy; the force that allowed keybladers to cast spells, use keyblades and engage in any magical activities. That the scan would take on that form concerned him greatly. Just to be sure, Eraqus shifted through his files and took out the folders on Terra and Aqua. He immediately went to the sections with their yearly magical core scans, and took out the results from their childhood. For a moment, he was relieved because they didn’t match.

But then, he realized that was because the foreign magic scans matched those of their _adult_ selves.

He put the papers down, staring at them blankly. How could this be? Had the magic purposely mimicked their cores so that their bodies wouldn’t reject it? No, he dismissed that. That would require a sentience magic didn’t have. The only other option he could think of was that the Youth spell was attracted to the magical cores and coated its outside, or else intertwined with it or -  

And his face went white as it all became clear: the Youth spell had fused with their cores.

No. Wait. That wasn’t quite right.

The Youth spell was _feeding_ off their cores.

It had latched on like a parasite, devouring his apprentice’s latent magic in order to sustain itself. No wonder then that his apprentices could no longer summon their keyblades; the Youth spell was stealing the magic they needed to do that. All those little questions – why were Terra and Aqua affected so much more severely than the villagers, why did the spell appear to be stronger in Aqua – had answers now. And with all of these conclusions, he reached another one:

The spell, if left to its natural devices, would be permanent.

That wasn’t to say that his apprentices couldn’t be cured, but the spell would never wear off naturally. So long as Terra and Aqua continued to possess magic –and that would be forever – the spell would continue to affect them. They were stuck in this state, never aging, never growing. At least the spell didn’t appear strong enough to reset their memories every day.

He leapt to his feet and left his office to find Xehanort.

* * *

“Well, I cannot disagree with you,” Xehanort said with a hefty sigh. “It seems logical.”

Eraqus asked, “So, how do we fix it?”

Xehanort said, “We must remove the foreign magic forcefully. It’s the only way.”

Eraqus nodded, and then the two Masters turned to look at the very grumpy Terra sitting on the metal table.

“We’ll start with him,” Xehanort said. “He will be easier to cure than Aqua.”

“Very well, I’ll prepare him.”

For once in his life, Terra was cooperating. It hadn’t been easy. Eraqus had been forced to both threaten and bribe the boy, and Eraqus suspected that the only reason that had worked was because he had told Ventus to speak with Terra beforehand. Whatever Ventus had said, it appeared to have had an effect.

As he had promised, Eraqus readied Terra for the procedure. It was a delicate one and as he reminded Terra over and over again, it was crucial that he remain as still as possible. Terra was incredibly displeased at that, but he didn’t argue so it was just possible this would go off without a hitch . . .

The door swung open. “Hiya!” Ventus said as he filed into the room with Aqua.

“Do you need something?” Eraqus asked.

“Nah, I just thought Aqua would be interested in watching. Besides, she’ll be a lot more eager to try it herself if she sees Terra do it!”

Eraqus nodded, impressed by Ventus’ reasoning. With his approval, Ventus and Aqua took a seat against the opposite wall. Well, Ventus took a seat and then Aqua sat on his lap.

“And we are starting . . . now.”

Eraqus pushed a button, and the machinery rumbled to life. It was a delicate procedure they began now, but not a complicated one. Simply put, the device would tear away that foreign layer of magic just as one peeled the skin away from an orange. He had used it on his students in the past, most often after Aqua had tried a new high-level spell on Terra or Ventus and it somehow went wrong. Those cases had been handled easily enough, and it seemed this one would be too.

From the sidelines, Ventus’ eyes narrowed.

Terra was quiet, completely still just as Eraqus had asked him to be. Aqua was tugging on Ventus’ sleeve, asking questions which the boy quickly shushed. He was watching the proceedings closely, a deep frown growing more pronounced each moment.

“Finally,” Eraqus said, “things will return to normal.”

Xehanort said, “Yes, it will be a pleasant relief when it does.”

Suddenly, the machines began to beep furiously, and on a small monitor ‘ _Extraction Interrupted’_ flashed in bright red letters.

“Interrupted?” Eraqus echoed. “Terra!”

He spun around, only to find Terra lying flat on the table just as he had been before. It hadn’t been him who interrupted the proceedings, but _Ventus_. He was standing by one of the control panels, face blank, finger still firmly on the ‘Abort’ button.

“Ventus, what is the meaning of this?”

Ventus ignored him. He approached Terra instead, and gently shook him. “Hey, are you okay?”

Terra didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t _do_ anything.

At that, Eraqus became a little concerned. “It’s alright, Terra. You don’t have to be still anymore.”

Terra still didn’t do anything.

Ventus shook him again, then lifted him a little off the table. That appeared to be the trigger point. Terra gasped like a drowning man, writhing violently in Ventus’ arms. His pupils were dilated, unfocused, hand clenched tightly over his heart. Without warning, he began to choke.

Eraqus broke into a run. “Terra!”

But Terra’s choking fit stopped as suddenly as it began, and by the time Eraqus reached him, he was merely wheezing. He looked up at his Master, looking very small and frightened, and Eraqus turned to Xehanort.

“What in the worlds just happened?” he demanded of Xehanort.

Xehanort scratched his chin. “Hmm, if I had to make a guess, I would say that the Youth spell is more tightly bound to his magical core than we first realized. By attempting to remove the Youth spell the way we did, we were accidentally starting to rip out his magical core.”

Eraqus went rigid. Light, what had they almost done?

“We will need to rethink things,” Xehanort said.

“Yes, yes,” Eraqus mumbled, still in shock. “Ventus, take Terra back to his room, bring him some ice-cream, and . . . Oh, just do whatever he wants.”

Ventus nodded soundlessly and with Aqua behind him, carried Terra out of the room.

“Kingdom Hearts,” Eraqus murmured, “will this ever end?”

He left the room, mind reeling, and the door shut with Xehanort still inside. Alone, Xehanort stared at the site of the failed experiment. Then, ever so slowly, he _smiled_.

“It is only a small bit of payback,” he said casually, “but it is better than nothing.”

And with that cruel grin still upon his face, Xehanort left the room as well.


	30. What Lurks Within

Caught within the deep embrace of sleep, no one heard the murmured words of the boy in his bed. He twisted and turned, half-asleep even as his nails dug into the mattress. Sweat coated his face, which was twisted with fear and imagined pains. With a whimper, Terra curled up into a ball.

“No . . .”

His eyes opened slightly, but it was not his room he saw, but flashes of another time. He saw a grim room, rain, a shadow of a man – not Eraqus, his mind quickly warned – heard shouting voices and the shattering of glass.

“No . . . stop. . .”

Terra’s teeth clenched, nearly trembling from the intensity.

And the picture shimmered, changed. Back to a storm, where yellow eyes waited and hunted in the dark.

“ _No_!”

Terra jumped into a sitting position, breathing heavily, arm automatically extending to call his keyblade. But the keyblade, locked away by his ever-so persistent youth, did not answer.

But something else _did_.

* * *

He sensed it first as a whisper on the wind, a cool waft across his face. That meant that Eraqus was fully awake when he heard the scream – nay, the _roar_ – from Terra’s room. He was held still by pure shock for a moment, but then time started again, and he threw open his door and ran into the hall. Ventus was already there, rubbing his eyes as he stumbled towards Terra’s room. Eraqus may or may not have pushed him aside; things were a blur to him. He ran without stopping, until he screeched to a halt in front of Terra’s room and pounded on the door.

“Terra? Terra!”

“Go away!” Terra shouted.

But Eraqus was not dealing with Terra’s stubbornness today. “Terra, I am coming in!”

And he did. He opened the door gently, in case Terra was behind it. He wasn’t though. At first glance, it would appear he wasn’t in his room. However, Eraqus recognized the state of the room; it was the same as it had been when Terra had panicked during the storm. So with that in mind, Eraqus went over to the closet again, and gently knocked on that door.

“Terra, are you in there?” he asked.

Terra’s muffled voice came from inside. “Go away.”

“Terra, I am not leaving. Now, are you going to tell me what just happened?”

Terra did not answer.

Eraqus sighed. “Terra, are you going to come out or am I going to have to come after you . . .? Not answering? Then I shall have to open this door myself in three . . . two . . . one.”

He turned the knob, unsure of what sort of state he would find his apprentice in. At the sound of the click, Terra wailed, and Eraqus could feel him trying to hold the door close. With one great effort, Eraqus overrode his apprentice’s will and swung the door open.

And he cried out.

Eraqus cut his shout off quickly, but the damage was already done. Terra picked off where his Master had left off, and burrowed into a corner. The boy’s yellow eyes were seen for a moment before he covered them, but thin wisps of darkness continued to peel off his body, crawling up the walls of the closet and across the floor. One strand brushed Eraqus’ foot, and he could not stop himself from cringing and kicking it away.

“What in Light’s name . . .?” Eraqus summoned his keyblade, stepping back and scanning the room. This darkness . . . where had it come from, and why had it attached itself to his apprentice?

“Hold still, Terra. I will get rid of this.” He raised Master Keeper and pointed it at the boy, readying a spell to burn away the darkness.

“No!” Terra screamed. He dove for the closet door and succeeded in pulling it closed again.

“Terra!” Eraqus yanked the door open. “I’m trying to get rid of it!”

And Terra, curled into a ball in the corner, cried even harder. “You can’t! You can’t, you _can’t_!”

Eraqus almost cast his spell there, but something in Terra’s voice made him pause. “Terra, what are you talking about?”

Terra uncurled himself, crawling towards him. “I’m sorry, Master.”

It was there, when Terra crawled out of the closet and into the light, that Eraqus saw the truth. There was no hostile force at work here. The darkness was coming _from_ his apprentice.

Oh, no . . .

No . . .

Terra . . . Terra’s heart had _darkness inside it_.

Terra sprung forwards, face wet with tears, arms wide as he sought the comfort of his Master’s arms. But the second Eraqus felt the cold darkness brush against his skin, his reaction was instinctive and immediate. He leapt backwards, yelping like a dog that had been bitten by a snake, and shoved Terra away.

The gravity of his actions sunk in a moment later. “Terra . . .”

The closet door slammed shut, Terra within.

* * *

Inside his handmade prison, Terra clutched his bear tighter to him, crying into its fur. It was pitch-black, but Terra knew the darkness – his darkness – was all around him. He could feel it leaking from him, tearing away from his heart with icy-cold pains. He hadn’t meant to do it, honest. It just happened. He had tried to be good. He really had.

“Terra?”

He jerked at his name, turning frightened golden eyes to the closet door. Oh, no . . . that was Ven! Terra shook his head; not Ven, too! He was going to hate him, just like Master did.

“Terra, are you in there?”

“No,” he said.

He could hear Ven pacing. “Look Terra, it’s okay. It’s not the end of the world. So you have a little darkness – that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yes, it does!”

“No, it doesn’t!” Ven shouted. “And I’m going to prove it.”

Without warning, the closet door opened. Ven stood there basked in the light, keyblade shining softly.

“See Terra, everything’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

But Terra couldn’t hear him. When that door had opened, revealing the older apprentice behind it, he had been rendered blind. The light . . . he could _feel_ it. It was too bright, too pure, and it _hurt_. He didn’t know where it was coming from, but he wanted it to go away.

Ven, oblivious to what was going on, leaned over. “Come on Terra, let’s get out of here and . . .”

“ _No!_ ”

Terra squeezed his eyes shut as the darkness raged around him. When it was over, he opened his eyes.

“V-Ven? Ven!”

Ven didn’t answer.

* * *

Outside in the hallway, things had gone downhill. Xehanort and Eraqus were nearly shouting at each other, and the latter’s face was bright red. Beside Aqua, Ven was panting, keyblade in hand as he healed the wounds from Terra’s freak-out. Even Vanitas seemed slightly disturbed, though his face was one of cool detachment.

“Just let me talk to the boy,” Xehanort said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. “I can help him.”

“No!” Eraqus snapped. “It must be someone he trusts, someone he knows. You don’ t know him well enough to help.”

“Yes,” Xehanort said waspishly, “because your attempt had such positive results.”

“It caught me by surprise,” Eraqus said. “It won’t this time.”

Xehanort snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, Eraqus. Your hatred of the darkness won’t allow that. Let me speak to him. I can guide him through this troublesome time.”

There was a rare snarl on Eraqus’ face as he turned away from the other Master. “How could I have missed that this . . . this horror was lurking inside him?”

And Ven suddenly exploded. “ _Don’t say it like that_! He’s still the same; he’s still Terra!”

“I know, Ventus,” Eraqus said. “But for such a problem to have gone unnoticed . . .”

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” Ven hissed.

Eraqus suddenly locked onto the blond apprentice, eyes narrowing. “Did you know?” he demanded.

“No,” Ven said, “but if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered to me.”

“You don’t understand how serious this is, Ventus!”

“No, you’re the one who can’t understand!”

“By all means, I don’t mean to interfere with your argument, but Eraqus, you must allow me to speak to the boy!”

Now, they were shouting, arguments and protests blending into each other. Vanitas watched from the outside, but surprisingly, he wasn’t finding this very amusing. Aqua, meanwhile, frightened by all the noise, ducked into the nearest room she could find – Terra’s room.

She walked into the middle of the room and looked around. She was in Terra’s room . . . but where was Terra? She looked under the bed sheets, then under the bed, under the desk and even in the pillowcase. Then, she noticed the closet and walked over, opening it without hesitation.

“Hi, Terra!”

At the sound of her voice, Terra cringed, squeezing his bear so hard that it looked like the head would pop off.

She blinked, noticing the change in her friend. “Terra, you’re bleeding darkness.”

“I know!” he said. “Now, leave me alone.”

“But why?” she asked. She approached Terra, trying to peek at his face. “Why are you crying? Are you hurt?”

“Leave me alone, Aqua.”

“But why?”

“Because I said so!” he snarled, nearly spitting into her face.

In the face of Terra’s anger, Aqua had fallen onto her backside. “You want me to go away?” she asked, wounded.

“Yes.”

Aqua shivered, drawing her knees in tight. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, just go away.”

If anything, Terra’s answer made her even more upset. “You don’t want to be my friend anymore.”

“What?” Terra looked at her, snapped out of his self-loathing. “Yes, I do.”

“Then why do you want me to go away?”

“Because you’re my friend,” Terra mumbled, words becoming harder to distinguish as he slipped back into hating himself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Aqua actually laughed. “You won’t hurt me!” she said with complete confidence.

Terra’s muscles relaxed a little, even as he shook his head. “Yes, I will.”

She smiled. “No, you won’t. Because you’re my friend, silly!”

With that, Aqua happily threw herself at Terra, hugging him tight. After a brief pause, Terra returned the favour, burying his face in her shoulder.

And little by little, the darkness went away.


	31. Seperation

The arguing might have gone on for hours if Vanitas didn’t interfere. He matched up to the feuding group, stared at them each in turn, and then put two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. The piercing noise was enough to startle them all into silence, which Vanitas promptly took advantage of.

“Look everyone,” he clapped his hands together, “I don’t particularly care for what you’re talking about, but I just thought I would mention that the crisis appears to have solved itself.”

“Explain,” Xehanort said.

Vanitas preened, seemingly pleased at being the center of attention. “The darkness is gone, genius. You might have noticed if you hadn’t been so busy screaming at each other.”

Eraqus and Xehanort just looked at Vanitas, neither sure what to make of this development. Ven immediately ran into Terra’s room

“Terra, you in here?”

Terra’s bedroom was still in its rumpled, messy state. Then again, it probably would have been like that even without the darkness. The curtains stirred in a breeze and Ven wandered over to the window, shutting it firmly. It was then, while his back was turned, that the closet door creaked open . . .

Ven turned. The closet door didn’t close quite fast enough.

He walked over. “Terra, I know you’re in there. I’m going to open the door, okay?”

He heard rustling inside the closet, and what suspiciously sounded like giggling.

“Terra?”

He opened the closet and found a heap of clothes. All of Terra’s clothing, for his adult-self or not, had been pulled off their hangers and gathered into a pile. Ven poked at the pile with his foot, hitting something solid just beyond a pair of Terra’s giant cargo pants.

“Okay, what is it I’m hitting here?” he asked, lightly kicking the pile again.

The clothes shifted, and then Terra’s head popped up. There was a shirt draped over his head like an oversized hat, and Ven had the sudden image of a kitten that had gotten into the laundry.

“Hey there,” Ven said gently, ruffling Terra’s hair through the shirt. “You feeling okay?”

Terra nodded.

“That’s good. I know what happened was really scary, but-”

“Hi, Ven!”

Ven shrieked as Aqua popped out of the pile without warning. For his part, Terra just looked at Ven like he was crazy.

“Aqua, what are you doing here?” Ven asked, heart still pounding.

Aqua and Terra exchanged a look. “Nothing,” they said simultaneously.

Ven said, “Yes, that makes things _so_ much less suspicious.”

“Ventus?” That was Eraqus. He was outside the room, but Ven could see his shadow in the slit of light between the wood and the ground. “Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine.” Ven walked over and opened the door, revealing a flustered Eraqus. “Everything’s fine, now. Do you want to-?”

Eraqus cut him off quickly. “No! I mean I would, but I must research this topic at once. To remove the darkness in another’s heart . . . I can only pray there is enough literature to give us an answer.”

“Can’t that wait?” Ven asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ventus,” Eraqus said. “This needs to be taken care of as quickly as possible.”

With that, Eraqus left. Ven forced a big smile onto his face and turned back to the kids, but by their silence, he knew that they had heard everything.

* * *

There was a shy knock. Biting his lip, desperately looking anywhere that wasn’t in front of him, Terra was hunched over as he waited for his Master to answer. Eraqus did so, and then Terra dragged himself into his Master’s office.

“Sit down, Terra,” Eraqus said.

Terra grabbed a chair and pulled it up to his Master’s desk before collapsing into it. His hands were woven together, thumb rubbing nervous circles into the skin.

“Do you know why you are here?” Eraqus asked.

“The darkness,” Terra said. “I didn’t mean to do it, honest!”

“I know,” Eraqus said, “but we still need to do something about it.”

In a small voice, Terra asked, “Are you going to send me away?”

“No!” He said that firmly, loudly, making sure Terra had no room to misunderstand. “We will get this darkness under control, and then this will be just a memory.”

“It won’t go away, Master.”

“It will,” Eraqus said, eyes on his desk as he sorted some papers. “You will see.”

“No, it can’t, Master.”

Eraqus looked up. For a second there, Terra had sounded different, wiser, older. It seemed that for a moment that Eraqus hadn’t been speaking to a child, but someone who truly understood what they were saying.

“Yes, it can,” Eraqus repeated, “and until then, you need to stay away from Aqua.”

That got Terra to his feet. “Why?”

“Your darkness is too dangerous for her,” Eraqus said. “I will not have her placed in harm’s way. Once your darkness is under control, you may see her again.”

“No, no!” Terra ran around the desk, grabbing his Master’s pants as he pleaded. “I won’t hurt her; she’s my friend!”

“Which is why you need to stay away from her.” Eraqus pried off Terra’s hands and held them tight, leaning down to look his apprentice in the eye as he tried to express the absolute importance of this message. “The darkness does not care for friend or foe, only destruction!”

“But I care!” Terra cried. “She’s my friend. I wouldn’t hurt her!”

“Then get rid of the darkness,” Eraqus demanded.

Terra shook his head. “I _can’t_!”

Eraqus stood up, towering over his apprentice. “Then you will stay away from her!”

“But-”

“I have spoken.”

* * *

* * *

Outside Eraqus’ office, Xehanort moved his ear away from the door and smirked. His apprentice was with him, leaning against the wall as he stared into space. When Xehanort beckoned him, Vanitas sighed, sure that the old Master wanted to rant.

He was correct. As they walked away from Eraqus’ office, Xehanort began to speak.

“Ah, so the pieces fall into place,” he said softly, like an artist beholding his masterpiece. “Terra’s darkness has established itself, he and his Master are at an impasse, and even Ventus has been caught up in the troubles. The only one of Eraqus’ apprentices who remains unaffected is the girl, but she was never of much importance.”

“Things sure worked out nicely,” Vanitas remarked.

“Indeed.” If possible, Xehanort’s smirk stretched even wider. “All because of a little mishap with the machinery.”

“Yeah, heard about that from Aqua and Ventus,” Vanitas said. “Talk about luck.”

Xehanort coughed. “Indeed, _luck_.”

It didn’t take Vanitas long to catch on. “It wasn’t an accident.”

Xehanort chuckled. “Of course not. That Terra’s magical core would be entangled with the spell . . . it was obvious to me. I only wish that I had known the outcome of this earlier; I would have made sure Ventus could not interfere. Imagine what would have happened had Terra been under the machine for a longer period!”

“Wait, hold on a second.” Vanitas held out his hands. “If you didn’t know what was going to happen, why did you do it?”

“Why?” Xehanort sneered. “To _punish_ him, of course. Both he and the girl have been a thorn in my side since the moment I arrived.”

“Punishment, eh?” Vanitas shrugged. “Well, it certainly worked.”

“Yes, it certainly did.”

Still smirking, Xehanort walked off towards the kitchen. Vanitas stayed behind, matching his Master in expression. Only until the old Master was out of sight however, and then the smirk dropped away, making it clear that Xehanort’s words had not left his apprentice with amusement, but something else.

* * *

“Master, give him a break!” Ven was saying from across the desk. “He’s just a kid.”

“That doesn’t make his darkness any less dangerous,” Eraqus said. “This has to be handled delicately.”

“You’re treating him like a _prisoner_!” Ven cried, slamming his hands down on Eraqus’ desk. “Locking him up in his room, keeping him away from everyone else . . . Master, how is this helping him?”

“I have not locked him up,” Eraqus said. “He is perfectly free to leave his room.”

“And do what? Walk around the castle by himself? Run out of the room as soon as you look at him funny? Forget a prisoner; Master, you’re treating him like a pariah, and you’re trying to make us do it, too!”

Eraqus tensed, nails digging into the wood of his armrest. “That is not true,” he said.

“I heard what you said to Aqua!” Ven snapped. “Terra is _not_ going to attack her! Master, it’s been three days . . .”

“And the problem has only worsened!”

“Then maybe you’re handling it wrong.”

“That is enough, Ventus!”

They were both breathing heavily, hands on the desk, weight leaning forwards. Eraqus calmed down first, straightening up again, moustache quivering as he swallowed down a snarl. There was no warmth in the glares he and Ven shot each other, only fury.

“I advise that you leave my presence, immediately,” Eraqus said.

They held each other’s stares for a moment longer, and then Ven stiffly turned and marched out of the room, slamming the door for good measure.

Outside, he slumped against the door, sliding down it until he was sitting. Head in his hands, he fought back the massive headache threatening to overwhelm him. His rage was still smouldering, lurking just below the surface. His blue eyes hard, he forced himself to walk away from his Master’s office.

On the way to his room, he passed by Terra’s room. The door was open just a crack, enough for little wisps of darkness to escape the room. Ven hadn’t been kidding when he said things were getting worse. Terra was drowning in his darkness, and there was no one there to pull him out.

Closing his eyes with pain, Ven continued to walk down the hall. Next, of course, was Aqua’s room. The door was wide open and he could see her in it, happily humming as she played with a teddy bear.

Wait a second.

“Aqua, is that Terra’s bear?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “He said he had to go away for a while, so he let me borrow it so I would have someone to play with!”

As Aqua continued to peruse her best friend’s bear and speak to it, Ven felt his heart break. Even now, when he was in so much misery, Terra had chosen to give up his one means of comfort to take care of her . . .

“When will he be back?” Aqua asked.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No.” The corners of her mouth dipped down in sadness. “He just said he had to go away.”

She suddenly put the bear down. “Is . . . is he coming back?”

He sat down in front of her.   “Of course he is,” Ven said. “Don’t worry about that.”

“But when?”

Ven opened his mouth, and then closed it again. If Eraqus had his way, it could be in a very, very long time.

He leaned back against the wall dividing Terra and Aqua’s room. Aqua watched him for a bit, waiting for his answer. When it failed to come, she returned to playing with the bear, but Ven noticed she was gripping it very tight.

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t do this . . .

. . . Maybe he _shouldn’t_.


	32. Accepting

That was definitely Aqua’s laugh he was hearing.

Eraqus stomped over to Terra’s room, and yanked the door open. The laughter stopped immediately. Seated on the bed, the two children stared at him with wide eyes, neither daring to move.

“Aqua, what are you doing here?” Eraqus demanded.

Terra flinched violently, letting Eraqus know that Terra knew he was breaking the rules. Aqua, on the other hand, blinked in confusion before simply saying, “Playing with Terra.”

Eraqus said, “And what do you have to say for yourself, Terra?”

Terra didn’t speak fast enough, and Eraqus whisked Aqua away from him. The boy made a pained noise, arm starting to rise, but with a resigned look, it sunk back to his side. Head bowed, Terra sat on his bed, not moving even as the door shut again.

Out in the hall, Eraqus put Aqua down. She smiled at the sudden movement, arms held wide out as if she was flying. Once her feet were on solid ground, she spun around to smile at her Master. But the cold anger in his expression stopped that plan in its tracks.

“Aqua, do you remember what I told you?” Eraqus asked.

Aqua snapped to attention and thrust her chest out, voice dropping as she tried to imitate him. “Don’t wander off without permission!”

“No, about the darkness.”

Something passed over her face. “Yes,” she muttered.

“Then why were you in his room?!” Eraqus paced back and forth in front of Terra’s door, struggling to control his temper. “I told you that the darkness is dangerous!”

In a voice too quiet for him to hear, Aqua said, “But the darkness went away . . .”

He broke out of his pacing to take a step towards her. “The darkness will _hurt_ you, Aqua. Do you want to be hurt?”

Shaking her head fiercely, she backed away. “Terra won’t –”

“That is _not_ Terra! That is the darkness using his body!”

Suddenly, someone stepped in front of Aqua and Eraqus was looking at blond hair instead of blue. So focused Had he been on Aqua, he hadn’t even noticed that Ventus had arrived on the scene. For his part, Ventus was clearly bitter, his stance like that of a dog defending its fallen master.

“This has gone far enough,” Ventus said quietly.

Eraqus growled, “And on what authority do you . . .”

He trailed off. Behind Ventus, Aqua stirred. She stood just beyond Ventus’ shoulder, clutching his arm tightly, and in her eyes, Eraqus could see _fear_.

Ventus’ eyes flickered to Terra’s door, but he stuck with Aqua. “Come on,” he said to her, “let’s go.”

* * *

 _Breathe in, breathe out_. Ven had to keep up that mantra to keep himself calm. Things were terrible. At this rate, Eraqus was going to drive a wedge between _everyone._ The air in the castle seemed toxic now, and even Aqua was beginning to stay quiet. Ven wanted to think that this would all go away once Eraqus was satisfied with Terra’s control, but he had his doubts. Rather powerful doubts, actually. And if what Terra and Aqua experienced during this new childhood carried over to after they were cured . . .

Sitting at the table, Ven let his forehead fall against the tabletop. He knew what Eraqus was doing was wrong, that things needed to change before the consequences stuck, but Eraqus wouldn’t listen! Plus, every time Ven tried to talk to him, he got flustered and frustrated and then that made him start yelling which set Eraqus off . . .

Ven groaned. He needed some sort of plan. Looking up, he lazily scanned the room, passing over the empty seats, the doorway, and the dark corner –

How long had Vanitas been there?!

“Things not going well?” Vanitas asked, his signature smirk firmly on his face.

“Not the time,” Ven said.

Vanitas sighed. “You always think I’m up to no good . . .” Vanitas slunk over to the table and sank into the seat across from him. “Well, you’re not that far off, but even I think about other things in a while.”

“Really.” Ven said, tone flat, uninterested.

“Oh, sure. I think about life and all that stuff, the future, a certain apprentice’s feud with his Master. . .”

He cut over the black-haired boy. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Vanitas chuckled, head in his hands, elbows on the table. The smile suddenly faded. “End this fight. Now.”

Ven’s heart thumped painfully, like a war drum heralding the charge into battle. “I’m not backing down!” he said. “Master’s . . .”

Vanitas scoffed. “I didn’t say you had to give in, idiot. I just want you to end this, one way or another. As much fun as it’s been to see you two at each other’s throats, it’s giving me a headache. Your fighting kept me awake for three hours last night. Three. Hours.”

“I’m trying, but Master won’t listen!” Ven threw his arms up in the air, dragging a hand through his hair afterwards. “He’s too obsessed with destroying Terra’s darkness.”

Vanitas stared at him, shaking his head with what almost looked like pity. “Look,” he said, “your Master loves you– all of you.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Ven mumbled.

Vanitas laughed darkly. “Don’t say that. You’d know if he hated you.”

Vanitas’ voice was resentful, envious. Ven squinted, realizing that there was some underlying meaning in what Vanitas was saying. But Vanitas rolled his shoulders and then whatever negative emotion had been on his face disappeared, replaced by careless callousness. “He cares about you more than the darkness. He just needs a bit of a reminder,” Vanitas said.

“What are you suggesting?” Ven asked quietly.

Vanitas grinned viciously.

* * *

Inside Ven’s room, Terra looked up at Ven, biting his lip nervously. “Are you sure about this, Ven?”

Leaning against the closet door, just beyond the sight of the door, Ven nodded. “If Master shows up, I’ll take care of it. Trust me, guys.”

Neither Terra nor Aqua said anything, but Ven could still tell they were nervous. Terra’s gaze was fixed on his feet, and Aqua was chewing her thumb, cuddling with Terra’s bear. When he looked though up, she presented it to him, and he took it with cheeks aflame.

But kids would be kids, and it didn’t take long for them to fall back into routine. Terra, probably still hurting from his isolation over the past four days, pounced. Aqua squealed, and then the two tumbled over each other in a mass of flailing limbs. Ven just watched, not participating, just waiting.

And sure enough, Eraqus arrived.

The door slammed open and the fuming Master was standing in the threshold. He took one step forwards - one step - and then Ven blocked his path, digging his heels in as he stood his ground.

It did not take the Master long to figure out what was going on. “Ventus,” he asked, “what do you think you are doing?”

“The right thing,” he said calmly.

“The right thing?” Eraqus spluttered. “How is this -?”

“Not here,” Ven said . “Out in the hall.” He wanted to have this fight elsewhere not only for Terra’s peace of mind, but because it was necessary for this plan to work. Vanitas had told him that Eraqus would be incensed by the sight of Terra, and that it was crucial for Ven to separate them.

Eraqus wasn’t having it though. “Not until Aqua . . .”

In those brief few seconds, Ven weighed his options. Eraqus wasn’t standing quite inside the room yet. Moving so quickly that Eraqus blinked, Ven stepped out into the hall and closed the door to Terra’s room, separating them. He then stood directly in front of the doorknob, stopping Eraqus from entering.

Ven could see the blood rushing to Eraqus’ face, but he didn’t care. “What’s your next move, _Master_?”

“Y-you . . .” Eraqus couldn’t quite finish his sentence, caught off-guard by Ven’s tone. “The darkness is in there with Aqua! Why are you stopping me?”

Ven took a deep breath, and then let the bomb drop. “Which is more important, Master: your crusade against the darkness, or us?”

Eraqus stared at him, mouth hanging open. Finally, he shouted, “What sort of query is this? I am a Keyblade Master, meant to uphold the order of the worlds and . . .”

There he went: justifying it, changing the subject just as Vanitas had said he would. But Ven also remembered what else Vanitas had said: ‘ _Make him choose. Don’t let there be a third option._ ’

“Which is more important, Master?” Ven repeated.

A pregnant pause. Eraqus twitched, as if waking from a deep sleep. “There is no choice to be made, Ventus. Now, get out of my way!”

 _Guilt him_. _Make him see._

Eyes closed, head against the door, Ven asked, “If you had known about Terra’s darkness beforehand, would you have still taken him in?”

“Of course I would have!” Eraqus sounded incredibly insulted, and Ven took that as a good sign.

Ven said, “If it didn’t matter then, then why does it matter now?”

“I-”

“Make your choice, Master.”

Eraqus shifted as if he wanted to run. “Terra is in there, and he –”

“No!” Ven’s arm swung out as he stepped forwards. “This isn’t about him, this is about _you_! Make your choice, or I’ll make it for you.”

Eraqus blinked. “Is that a threat?”

Ven drew himself up high, and the edges of his face were sharply defined in the light. “It might be.”

Before anything else could be said, Ven opened the door and slipped back into the room. Three tense minutes passed before he and the kids could relax again, and in that time, Eraqus had not disturbed them.

But there was still something Ven had to do.

“Terra, can I borrow your bear?”

Terra looked confused, but he let Ven take it. Ven left the kids in Terra’s room, and ran to the training arena to grab his wooden keyblade. He wasn’t sure why, but Vanitas had stressed that Ven needed to grab it and Terra’s bear, and then leave them in Terra’s room. Why this was important, Ven had no idea, but so far, Vanitas had been right about everything.

Ven entered Terra’s room and dropped the two items on the bed.

The ball was in Eraqus’ court now.

Ven could only hope he made the right choice.

* * *

“And he . . .! That disrespectful, that insolent . . . Ventus!”

“Careful Eraqus,” Yen Sid said, “that was almost a proper sentence.”

Eraqus ceased pacing and glared at a crystal orb. Yen Sid was not actually with him, but using this orb, they could still see and speak to each other when necessary. And it was at this orb that Eraqus aimed the full might of his fury. However, Yen Sid appeared calm, if not a little amused.

“What does he want from me?” Eraqus said.

“I thought you made that clear,” Yen Sid said. “He wants you to make a choice.”

“Yes, I understand that. But the choice itself . . . what a ridiculous question!” Eraqus pulled up a chair in front of the orb and sat down. “How could he ask something like that?”

“What is your answer?” Yen Sid asked.

Eraqus did not say anything immediately. He was too busy trying to process Yen Sid’s question. “There is no answer, because the two are not related! Anyone can see that.”

“Aren’t they?” As Eraqus watched, Yen Sid’s face appeared to tighten. “From where I stand Eraqus, the two choices are intimately connected.”

“How?!” Eraqus shot to his feet, nearly knocking the stool over in his haste.

“Simple. With a bit of rephrasing, I think you will understand, as well. Terra has darkness inside him Eraqus, and nothing can change that. Now, which is more important: Terra, or destroying the darkness that dwells within him?”

There was a very, very long silence.

“The darkness brings death,” Eraqus whispered. “I cannot allow it to fester here.”

“Then the choice is obvious. Terra cannot remain with you.” Yen Sid dipped his head. “Good day to you, Eraqus.”

And before he could do anything, the crystal shimmered and Yen Sid was gone.

* * *

Eraqus walked through the castle, heart heavy. Darkness . . . it needed to be destroyed. Darkness was destruction. There was no other way.

He passed by Xehanort without a word, causing the other Master to frown in surprise. Eraqus didn’t notice, and wandered into the castle’s foyer, his feet afterwards taking him outside. The sun greeted him there, warm, blinding in its intensity. He squinted up at it, and quickly adverted his eyes as they started to water. All around him, grass swayed in the breeze and butterflies fluttered from flower to flower, unaffected by the storm within the castle.

He could not take it, the peace here, and went back inside. There, he wandered blindly again, mind churning out excuses and half-finished apologies.

He was not sure how he ended up in Terra’s room, but he did. Perhaps he had unconsciously been seeking closure, or else some god out there wanted him to further suffer. Such merry times had been had here, such love and trust had filled this room . . . No more.

On the bed was Terra’s old wooden keyblade. Eraqus picked it up, turning it to see the names carved into its handle. Terra, Aqua and Ventus, the inseparable trio. Even now, they refused to abandon him, though it could easily lead to their doom. They still saw the innocent he had once been, the small child that Eraqus had taken in. They still saw him as he once was: full of light.

But had this darkness always been inside Terra?

“What changed?” Eraqus let the question fall out of him, hoping against hope that someone would hear and give him the wise words he so desperately needed.

Terra was a ticking time bomb. The darkness could go out of control at any moment. He was a danger not only to everyone else, but to himself. For his sake, something needed to be done.

He turned the keyblade over again, thinking of how proud the boy was when he made it. Terra designed it after Master Keeper and Eraqus hadn’t found out until later, but he had spent an entire month carefully carving the keyblade sliver by sliver.

That boy, that young, wonderful boy Eraqus had raised . . . was he gone?

He closed his eyes. An image flashed in front of his eyes: Terra engulfed by darkness, with callous yellow eyes. . .

_You are dangerous Terra, a threat to everyone who ventures near._

He looked at the keyblade again, and the picture changed. It was still a boy he saw, but one with bright blue eyes and an ecstatic smile as showed his masterpiece to his delighted Master.

_You have changed. You are not the boy you once were . . ._

He moved the keyblade aside, intending to put it down, and caught sight of Terra’s teddy bear. Keyblade forgotten, he grabbed the bear and held it up to the light; the cold, black eyes seemed to bore into his soul, judging.

_And yet . . ._

He remembered buying this bear, giving it to Terra after he had fallen into a depression. The depression had been over the memory of his parents’ abandonment; the same memory that in this new childhood, had drove Terra to seek out his bear again.

 _You’re still_ _you_.

Eraqus murmured, “Dear Light . . . how could I have done this?”

_You’re still Terra._

And finally, Eraqus understood.

* * *

Eraqus had first believed that Ventus would not allow it, but surprisingly, the apprentice agreed easily. He grabbed Aqua and left, leaving Eraqus alone with Terra.

Terra stared after Ventus long after the other boy was gone. He did not look at his Master, and did not speak either. He remained as he was: huddled into a corner, lip trembling. Eraqus simply watched him for a while, and then sat down on the floor, legs tucked under him.

“Terra . . .”

Terra flinched, eyes snapping shut.

“Terra, it’s okay now.”

Terra sluggishly turned to look at him. “You forgive me?”

Eraqus shook his head. “There is nothing to be forgiven. This was my error, and that alone.”

Terra crawled towards him, just as he had when his darkness first emerged. This time though, Eraqus did not run, but closed the distance between them. He held Terra in his arms, rubbing his back as the boy cried into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Terra. I’m so sorry . . .”

It was impossible to understand him, but Eraqus could predict what Terra said into his shoulder.

Eraqus squeezed his eyes shut as they burned. “It does not matter who you are, or what’s inside you; you will always be my son.”

And with tears running down both their faces, they held each other tight.


	33. Redecorating

Think of the brightest, the ugliest, the most obnoxious shade of yellow there could possibly be. It would be the same shade of yellow that caused blindness, that gave those that looked at it for too long violent headaches; it was the same shade of yellow that haunted nightmares.

That was the shade of yellow someone had painted Ven’s room.

Ven stood in the doorway, hands on his forehead, eyes tightly closed. Still, the brightness of the colour seemed to pierce through them. He whirled around, eyes still closed, and tottered away from his room. Once that was done, he opened his eyes a crack, shivering in relief when he saw that the yellow was gone.

But how did it get all over his room in the first place . . .

“Terra.”

* * *

Humming, Eraqus entered the kitchen. It was noon, which meant it was time for his second daily cup of tea. He placed the kettle on the burner, and then reached up to the counters to grab some honey –

Only to jump back when he saw the face staring at him.

Oh, it wasn’t actually a real face, just a happy face. Someone had painted it on the cabinet doors, with blue eyes and a hideous yellow face. How adorable! He chuckled to himself, grabbed the honey and then turned to place it on the counter . . .

And saw another one.

He blinked, and then hesitantly looked around. That’s when he noticed that they were _everywhere_ : on the fridge, the walls, perching on counters and doors. All the eyes stared at him, their phony smiles burning underneath.

Eraqus remained still until the kettle whined, and then he made his tea as quickly as possible and backed towards the exit. The eyes followed him.

Once out, he nearly ran to his office. But he controlled himself and kept it down to a brisk walk instead. Once in his office, he plopped down in his chair with a sigh. He sipped his tea, turned his gaze down to his work –

Someone had painted a happy face on his desk.

He stared at it for a few moments. Then he growled, “Terra.”

* * *

“There you are!”

Ven advanced on the small boy, who was slowly inching away. Terra looked at Ven, really looked at the expression on his face, and then shot down the halls, screeching, “I didn’t do it!”

Ven pounded after him. “Get back here!”

Terra ran screaming through the halls, past a stunned Xehanort, and nearly smashed into his Master. However, despite the fact that they didn’t actually collide, Eraqus did not look pleased.

“Terra,” Eraqus said, “what did you do?”

“I didn’t do it!” Terra screamed, and he dove between his Master’s legs, rolled to his feet and took off again.

From behind Terra and Eraqus, Ven yelled, “Someone catch Terra!”

His number of pursuers now doubled, Terra pushed himself even harder. To his dismay, Eraqus was in better shape than he looked, and the trio continued their wild rush through the halls.

Then, at one particular junction Terra had just passed, Xehanort stepped out. A vein was bulging in his temple, his eyes were narrowed to slits, and he loudly demanded, “What in the worlds is this racket about?”

Unfortunately for him – and fortunately for Terra – Xehanort had chosen the worst possible moment to interfere.

Eraqus and Ven slammed into him, and they could have sworn there was a crack as all three hit the ground. Xehanort was on the bottom of the pile, with Ven’s elbow digging into his lungs, and Eraqus sprawled across his chest. For a dazed moment, the three didn’t move, and then Eraqus quickly sprung back to life.

“Xehanort!” He twisted his body around to look the fallen Master in the eye. “Are you hurt?”

Xehanort muttered a series of phrases that were not at all child-friendly, but that was okay because they were too muffled for anyone to understand him anyways.

“Xehanort?”

“I said get off me!” Xehanort snarled, grimacing as he held his ribs. Eraqus hurriedly obeyed, pulling Ven up as well.

“Xehanort . . .”

“I’m fine,” the Master said, still on the ground. “Now leave me be!”

They hovered over him for a moment more, and then slunk away. Once he was sure they were gone, Xehanort tried to stand. When he got his back off the ground though, there was a loud crack.

“My spine!”

And further down the hall, Vanitas, who had seen the whole thing, grinned.

* * *

“Hey Vanitas, have you seen Terra?”

Lying down on a couch, feet on the armrest, Vanitas said, “Nope.”

Ventus sighed. “Where could he possibly be . . .?”

“Did you check Aqua’s room?” Vanitas asked.

“First place I looked,” Ventus said dismissively. “Actually, I can’t find her either. They’re probably hiding together somewhere.”

“Yes,” Vanitas said shortly. “They probably are.”

Vanitas had expected that to be the end of the conversation, which is why he jumped when Ventus’ hand suddenly landed on his shoulder. With a scowl, Vanitas looked up at him and asked, “What?”

“I, uh . . .” Ventus’ face coloured a little. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

Vanitas narrowed his eyes. “For not seeing Terra?”

“No, for helping me with my Master. If it hadn’t been for you, I . . .” Ventus shook his head. “I don’t want to even think about what could have happened.”

Vanitas shrugged and looked away again. “Whatever.”

“No, seriously, thank you. Now, I guess I better find out where Terra went!”

Vanitas was still as Ventus ran off. Only once his lighter half was gone, did he raise his hand up to his chest. His palm pressed against the flesh over his heart, absorbing the sudden warmth there.

“This feeling . . .” he muttered. “What is it?”

It made him nervous when he didn’t understand something, so he pushed that question to the fringes of his mind and focused instead on the paint job the castle was currently undergoing. He stood, deciding that he better put an end to things before they got caught. With a snap of his fingers, he teleported to Eraqus’ bedroom, where Aqua was happily painting a crude picture of her Master on the wall.

“Hi, Vanitas!” she said.

“Having fun?” he asked.

Aqua beamed, and then returned to attempting to paint her Master’s hair.

“Okay,” Vanitas said, “I think that’s enough for today.”

“But I’m not finished!” she whined. She pouted as Vanitas snatched the paintbrush from her.

“You can finish another day,” he said, “got it? Now, did you listen to me and stay away from Xehanort’s room?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good girl.” He ruffled her hair. “Let’s get out of here before anyone sees us.”


	34. Adventure

Ven stared at Terra. “You’re _what?_!”

“I’m running away!” Terra announced, “And I’m never coming back!”

“B-but why? Why would you do this?” Ven pulled at his hair, nearly tearing it out of his scalp. “You can’t run away!”

“But I’m gonna, and you can’t stop me!”

With that said and done, Terra ran for the castle’s doors. This time however, Ven, fuelled by his horror, flung himself at Terra, tackling him around his midsection. Their landing was not particularly gentle; Terra yelped in pain and surprise, and Ven’s elbows smashed into the ground.

Terra recovered first, writhing underneath Ven’s bulk. “Get off!” he demanded. He growled adorably, like a puppy in the middle of a game of tug-of-war.

“Not until you change your mind,” Ven said, although he did shift his position as not to suffocate Terra.

“I’m not changing my mind!” Terra howled. “You can’t make me!”

Ven patted his head. “Well, then you’re not going anywhere.”

“I’ll . . .” Terra went still, thinking. “I’ll use my darkness to get you off!”

“ _What_?”

Oh no. OH no. That was the last thing either of them had wanted Eraqus to hear. The old Master towered over them, eyes wide with shock.

“Terra,” he growled, “the darkness is _not_ to be used to hurt people!”

Terra said nothing, but he inched backwards, trying to hide underneath Ven’s chest.

The tension rose. Eraqus’ face was stormy, like the clouds before the thunder broke. Ven bunched his legs underneath him, ready to spring to his feet should things veer downhill.

With a deep breath though, Eraqus seemed to win control over his emotions again. The suppressed anger Ven had seen there before was replaced by indifference, and Eraqus’ voice gave nothing away as he said, “Now, what exactly is going on here?”

Ven said, “Terra, he wants to . . .”

Terra chose that moment to speak. “I’m running away!”

“Is that so?” Eraqus asked. He leaned down and ruffled Terra’s hair. “Well, then I wish you safe travels.”

And Ven stared up at him with shock. “Master! What are you doing?”

“Let him up, Ventus,” Eraqus said.

Reluctantly, Ven did so, and Terra ran off again, shoving his way through the doors to the outside. Eraqus watched this casually, turning away afterwards.

“Master, shouldn’t we go after him?” Ven demanded.

Eraqus waved him off. “Oh, no. He’ll be fine. Now, what shall we have for dinner?”

Eraqus sounded confident, but Ven couldn’t trust that. “I’m going after him!” Ven said.

Eraqus sighed. “Very well. Check the river to the east. If he isn’t in the water, he’s perched atop the boulder overlooking it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because,” Eraqus smiled fondly, “that’s where he always goes.”

* * *

Standing on the bank of the river, looking across the water at Terra who was trying to sharpen a spear against a large stone, Ven scratched his head and said, “So, want to come home now?”

“Nope!”

“Are you sure, Terra?” He took a step forwards. “I mean it’s almost dinner, and I’m sure you must be hungry . . .”

“I’m going to live off the land!” Terra said. He thrust his dull spear into the air. “I’m going to catch fish, and cook them, and then I’m going to build myself a house and it will be bigger and better than the Master’s.”

“Riiight.”

Terra scowled. “You’ll see,” he muttered.

Ven sighed, and then dropped down to his knees. “Look, Terra,” he said gently, “living on your own isn’t easy. I mean I’m older than you and I’m still leaving with the Master.”

“That’s because you’re not as great as me,” Terra said.

“Am too!”

“No, you aren’t.” Terra shook his head, a wise air surrounding him. “You’re not brave enough to run away.”

 _Must remain calm . . ._ “Terra, you _can’t_ live by yourself,” Ven insisted. “Who’s going to take care of you when you’re sick or something?”

“I will!” Terra said. “I’m going to live off the land like the Master.”

“Terra, Master doesn’t live off the land.”

“Yeah.” Terra leaned forwards, voice dropping as if he was telling a secret. “”That’s because he’s _old_. He used to, and now I’m going to do it, too!”

“Master used to–?”

“I SEE A FISH!”

A great plume of white spray rose up into the air. Ven only had time to think _‘Oh crap’,_ before he was drenched. Clothes dripping, spikes almost lying flat, Ven glared at Terra, who was standing in the middle of the waist-high river, holding his spear slack.

“It got away,” Terra said unnecessarily.

Ven shook himself, droplets of water flying in every direction. “Come inside when you’re done,” he said, leaving Terra to go find some dry clothes.

* * *

Eraqus blinked, looking at his soaked apprentice. “You went swimming in your clothes?”

“No,” Ven said, standing on the front steps as he squeezed out his shirt. “Terra splashed me.”

Eraqus smiled. “Ah, yes. Was he spearfishing?”

“Yeah, he was . . . How did you know?”

Eraqus waved him inside, and then started to speak. “I’m afraid this is my fault, Ventus. When I was younger, my parents taught me much about surviving in the wilderness. Consequently, when I was upset, I was perfectly capable of running into the woods and surviving there with a few friends. I used to tell Terra about those times, and he fell in love with those stories. Sometimes, he becomes determined to live them out.”

“But for how long?”

“He’ll be back before tomorrow morning,” Eraqus said. “He always is.”

Ven bit his lip, looking down at the ground uncertainly. “But how do you know he will this time?”

“Because we’re here. And Aqua’s here too, of course. I dare say that’s a significant factor . . .”

* * *

The front door creaked open. A beat passed, and then a head poked inside, carefully looking around. With timid steps, Terra made his way into the castle, shutting the door carefully behind him.

He prowled about like a cat, hunched over, on all fours whenever he peered around a corner. So far, so good. With increased confidence, Terra moved a little faster, a little louder. The slapping of his shoes against the floor echoed like the ticking of a clock.

He rolled into the kitchen like a ninja, his eyes locking onto the fridge after. Licking his lips with anticipation, Terra opened it and sought out the leftovers from today’s dinner. There was part of a roast left and some vegetables, but he only really cared about the roast. He grabbed it, intending to take it back with him . . .

He turned and found himself facing his Master.

“Hi?” Terra said.

Arms crossed, Eraqus raised his eyebrows. “I don’t believe that’s yours, Terra.”

Pouting, Terra handed the roast over, and Eraqus put it back in the fridge.

“I suppose your plans to eat fish were not a success. Have you ever fished before?” Eraqus asked.

“Yeah, of course I have . . . “

“Have you ever caught anything?”

Terra blushed and shook his head.

“Well then,” Eraqus said, grabbing Terra’s hand, “that certainly won’t do. We can’t have my apprentice starve now, can we?”

Terra looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Simple. We’re going to go catch your dinner.”

* * *

The next morning, Ven nearly had a heart attack when Terra’s bed was empty. He ran through the halls shrieking for his Master (waking a very grumpy Xehanort in the process), and burst into Eraqus’ bedroom to find it empty. Internally, he checked things off: Terra was missing, Eraqus was missing . . .

Surely, this meant some catastrophe had happened.

Ven ran into Aqua’s room, snatched her up and them deposited her on top of a (formerly) sleeping Vanitas, telling her to stick with him. Then he hammered on Xehanort’s door, forcing the old Master to hobble over to answer it, where he was then blasted with the full extent of wild energy that was Ven in a panic. After he finished freaking out, Ven left the stupefied Master behind and exploded out of the castle, racing for the river where he had seen Terra last.

Hey, that tent hadn’t been there before.

Ven looked inside. Terra was there, _and_ Eraqus. The two were in the same sleeping bag, asleep in their day clothes, Terra curled into Eraqus’ chest. As he watched, Terra murmured sleepily and snuggled closer to his Master. Ven smiled; it was so cute! And he just happened to know that Vanitas had brought a camera with him. . .

He straightened up, intending to retrieve the camera from the castle. However, when he spun around, he found himself facing two very annoyed people.

He looked from Xehanort to Vanitas, and then hesitantly said, “Uh, false alarm?”


	35. Tutoring

From the castle’s front doorway, Eraqus watched his apprentices train. Well, training was a bit of an exaggeration; it would have been more accurate to say he watched Ventus sit there and defend himself as Terra and Aqua took turns swinging at him. The younger children were sweating, while Ventus – the one actually being attacked – was perfectly cool, but they all wore identical grins. Regardless of the age of those involved, the sight warmed Eraqus’ heart.

That’s why he said his next words to Xehanort with great reluctance, like a boy who had to admit that his favourite novel wasn’t really _that_ good.

“I am not comfortable with your proposal, Xehanort,” Eraqus said.

Standing next to him, Xehanort hardly stirred. “It has to be done, Eraqus. You certainly have no experience with the darkness; thus it must fall upon myself to teach him.”

“Yes, but so soon? He has only just discovered his darkness.”

Xehanort looked sideways at him. “I thought you had handled your prejudice towards the darkness.”

Eraqus cringed. “I am trying,” he protested, “but some things do not go away that easily.”

Xehanort grunted. “It is better to start young,” he said, thinking of something entirely different than his colleague.

Eraqus wilted like a flower. “I’ll talk to him.”

* * *

“You want me to train with _Xehanort_?” Terra asked skeptically.

“ _Master_ Xehanort.”

Terra shrugged at the correction. “Why?”

Eraqus said, “Well Terra, this it about your . . . err . . . _darkness_.”

There, he had said it: that one topic that had been subjected to an unspoken taboo. Terra quickly adopted a poker face, one that almost perfectly matched the one on his Master.

“My darkness?” Terra repeated.

“Yes, you need to be trained with it and well, I can’t do that for you. . .”

“With _Xehanort?_ ”

Eraqus frowned. “Is something wrong?”

Terra looked around carefully, and then hissed, “He’s lazy!”

Eraqus slapped his forehead. “Terra, Xehanort is not lazy.”

“I don’t want to train with Xehanort.” Terra stomped his foot, scowling. “Why can’t I train with someone else?”

“And just who do you have in mind?”

Terra thought it over for a minute or so, and then he smiled.

* * *

“I don’t recall agreeing to this!”

“Shush, Vanitas,” Xehanort said, as they made their way through the castle to the indoor training area. “This is a fabulous opportunity; I could not care less whether or not you volunteered. Just remember that-”

“Yes, I _know_. Push Terra towards darkness, blah, blah, blah.”

“Exactly.”

Growling, Vanitas slunk behind his Master. He was going to have to teach Terra, one-on-one, about darkness. Great. Fantastic. It’s not like there was _anything else_ he’d rather be doing with his time.

He stalled at the threshold, so that Xehanort eventually settled on just pushing him inside and then closing the door. That left Vanitas alone with Terra, who was looking at him brightly. Yes, not even a second in and already Vanitas was having his reserves.

“Alright twerp,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Terra looked at him, then down at his hands. “What do I do?”

“Well, summon the darkness, stupid.”

“But I don’t know how!” Terra whined.

Vanitas muttered curses under his breath and kicked the wall. Seriously? _Seriously_? “It’s like using magic . . .”

“But I can’t use magic!”

“Okay!” Vanitas snapped. “Sit down!”

Terra did so, his blue eyes wide and terrifyingly eager.

“Where to start . . .?” Vanitas scratched his chin, staring at a point just above Terra’s head. He needed to push Terra into darkness, which meant playing with the kid’s emotions. “Well, darkness is powered by negative feelings, so start getting angry.”

“But I’m not angry at you,” Terra said, as if that made it impossible to obey Vanitas’ instructions.

“Then start thinking of things that make you angry,” Vanitas ordered.

When Terra continued to stare at him blankly, Vanitas said, “You like your friends, Aqua and Ventus, right?”

“Yeah, and Master, too!”

An idea formed. Vanitas backed towards the door, holding a hand out to stop Terra from following. “I’ll be back. Stay here.”

Vanitas left, and then returned with Ventus in tow.

“So, what exactly did you want me to do?” Ventus asked.

“Just act like you’re in pain,” Vanitas whispered. In a louder voice, he said, “Hey Terra, look!”

With that, he wrenched Ventus’ arm behind his back, twisting it enough to make it uncomfortable, but stopping before it actually hurt him. Ventus was quiet for a second, and then he began shouting in exaggerated, faked pain. Terra’s mouth dropped open, and the boy had leapt to his feet, on the brink of charging.

“Take that!” Vanitas cried, and he began swatting Ventus in the head.

“Stop it!” Terra screamed. He grabbed Vanitas’ arm, trying to pull it away from Ventus.

Vanitas just smirked. He let go of Ventus and wound his arm around his other half’s neck instead. “I’m going to strangle you,” he threatened.

He felt Ventus shake as he tried not to laugh. “Oh no, don’t strangle me!”

As he continued to manhandle Ventus, Terra grew more and more frantic. Soon enough, tiny fists were beating at Vanitas’ back, to which he responded by shoving Terra backwards against the wall.

“Hey, go easy on him,” Ventus whispered.

Vanitas scoffed.

He felt it a second before it happened, as a cold draft against his neck. Pushing Ventus aside, Vanitas dove to the ground, Terra’s darkness grazing the top of his head. He turned. Terra was standing there, breathing heavily, darkness in his aura, but his eyes still blue.

“Great, so we’ve figured out this part,” Vanitas said. “Ventus, you can go now.”

Ventus nodded, but Terra hadn’t quite figured out what was going on. He growled, and it was no puppy’s growl, but a wolf’s snarl. Vanitas, unsure, merely stared, and Terra zeroed in on his hesitation. He sprung, his dark aura expanding wildly.

Ventus stepped in front of Vanitas, arms held out wide. “Whoa, Terra!”

The sight of Ventus stopped Terra short and he stood there, trying to peer around the older boy at Vanitas.

“It’s okay, Terra,” Ventus said. “We were just pretending.”

“Pretending?” Terra croaked.

“Uh-huh. Vanitas didn’t hurt me.”

Terra backed down, and his darkness began to die.

“No!” Vanitas pushed Ventus aside again. “We’re trying to keep the darkness around, not get rid of it again.”

Ventus said, “Let me handle this.”

Ventus approached Terra, and put his hands on Terra’s shoulders. “You don’t like it when Aqua or me get hurt, do you?”

Terra shook his head.

“So, you summoned the darkness to protect me . . . just focus on that, okay?” He leaned down, looking straight into Terra’s eyes. “When you need to use the darkness, just think of us, think about protecting us.”

Love rose from them, filling the room with its sticky touch. The only one that remained unaffected was Vanitas, but still, the warmth of emotions plaguing the other two lapped at his skin, burning it. From his position on the sidelines, Vanitas watched, something bitter making itself known inside him. Those two . . . nay, all three of Eraqus’ apprentices, they were so ridiculously attached to each other. It was unhealthy really, the dependency they shared.

And yet, if that was true, then why did he . . .?

He choked back the thought, unable to complete it. Instead, he spun Ventus around and then shoved him towards the door.

“Thanks, now go.”

Ventus looked back at him. “Vanitas, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said curtly. “Now go.”

He kicked the door shut in Ventus’ face, and then clapped his hands together. “Alright Terra, let’s get down to business.”

* * *

Terra was a surprisingly quick learner. Not as quick as Vanitas had been – of course- but still quicker than he had expected. By dinnertime, Terra was no means an expert, but he could manipulate the darkness enough to make it appear and disappear on will. His eyes too, had remained blue so far instead of going yellow, which struck Vanitas as unusual.

“Vanitas, look!”

Terra was playing with a sphere of darkness, which he bounced from palm to palm. Then, and Vanitas wasn’t sure if this was entirely intentional, the sphere morphed into a rippling ribbon that circled around Terra’s head like a halo. The boy shrieked in delight, trying to grab it. The darkness slipped between his fingers, but that didn’t dampened his spirits any.

“Looks like you got a handle on things,” Vanitas said. “Let’s call it quits for today.”

“Okay! Thanks Vanitas, you’re the best!”

Vanitas blinked. “The best, huh.”

“Yeah, the best!”

He stared at Terra, not knowing how to respond. Something, some small seed in his chest, grew, and whatever it was, it was . . . _warm_.

But then that wilted again when he remembered _why_ he was doing this.

“Don’t say that,” Vanitas muttered.

“But it’s true!”

“No!” He whirled around, eyes blazing. In a quieter voice, he said, “No. Don’t say that.”

He walked out of the room, isolating himself with his thoughts.


	36. Story Time

“Story, story, stoooory!”

Ven groaned, rubbing his forehead. “Do you really need a bedtime story?”

“Yes!”

While Ven sat on his bed, Terra had been sitting cross-legged on the ground. Now, without uncrossing his legs, he managed to shuffle closer, eagerly awaiting some kind of tale.

“Story!” he demanded.

“Oh, come on, Terra!” Ven said. “We can’t have a story without Aqua.”

That turned out to be the worst excuse ever, as Terra merely cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “Hey Aqua, get in here!”

Aqua scampered into Terra’s room, and then Ven had two kids staring up at him. Both were already dressed in their pyjamas, blue and orange respectively, but they showed absolutely no signs of wanting to sleep anytime soon. It was gentle colours they wore, soft colours, and it gave the illusion that these were two children who were very kind and not at all naughty.

But let’s not kid ourselves.

“Alright,” Ven said, surrendering, “what kind of story do you want?”

“A good one!” Aqua said intelligently.

“Thanks for narrowing it down,” he muttered, racking his brain for any that he knew. Going back to his own childhood was useless because hello, amnesia. He sighed. Surely, Aqua must have told him some kind of bedtime story before, but faced with all this pressure, he couldn’t remember any.

Ven began. “Once, there was . . . a princess.”

Terra scrunched his face up. “Ew, that’s a _girl’s_ story!”

“And a knight?” Ven offered.

Terra smiled, finding this much more to his taste.

“Was the princess pretty?” Aqua asked.

“Yes, very,” Ven said, “and the knight loved her very much. Now, one day, a dragon came to the kingdom. . .”

“I’ve heard this before,” Terra complained.

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

Terra wisely clamed up.

“Good.” Ven leaned back. “The dragon kidnapped the princess and took her back to his lair, and the knight, heart-broken, went after her.”

Terra put his hand up. “Why?”

“Why?” Ven blinked. This had definitely been a question he hadn’t expected. “Well, because he loved her, Terra, so he wanted to make sure she was safe.”

“So, why didn’t he just stop the dragon from taking her?” Terra demanded, lifting his chin in an arrogant fashion. “Isn’t that what he should have done if he loved her?”

“He tried, but the dragon was too strong and . . .”

Terra snorted. “He’s not a very good knight, then.”

Ven scowled. “We’re talking about a dragon, Terra. A _big_ dragon. With wings and fire!” He flapped his arms for emphasis.

But Terra wasn’t having it. “If a dragon came after Aqua, I would stop it,” he declared, puffing out his chest.

“No, _I_ would stop it,” Aqua said. “And why would a dragon come after me? I’m not a princess.”

“That’s true; we’re both knights.” Terra rubbed his chin. “So, who’s the princess?”

And as one, the children looked up at Ven and smiled.

* * *

“The knight pulled his sword out of the dragon’s chest, freed the princess, and they lived happily ever after. The end!”

The children clapped and Ven sank back against the wall, relieved. He couldn’t believe that he had been able to actually make up a story on the spot! Maybe this was a talent he should consider honing . . .

The applause was interrupted by laughter.

“That’s a _terrible_ story,” Vanitas sneered from the doorway. “I could tell one that’s way better.”

“Then why don’t you?” Ven challenged.

“Yeah, tell us!” Terra and Aqua demanded.

“I got better things to do with my time,” Vanitas said.

“Hey!” Ven cried. “You can’t just say something like that and then go,” he said, accompanied by the rapid nodding of Terra and Aqua’s heads.

Vanitas scoffed. “Watch me.”

Before the other boy could leave, Ven turned to the kids and quickly said, “If you guys wait in his room, and refuse to leave, then he’ll _have_ to tell you a story.”

Vanitas stiffened. His chin snapped around so that he could glare at Ven, who simply smiled back.

“You’re going to pay for this,” Vanitas hissed.

Ven’s smile widened. “Sure, after you tell them a story!”

* * *

“And then the dragon swooped down on the town!” Vanitas cried, dramatically acting out the story with his hands. “It roared, spitting fire out of its mouth, and everything caught on fire! All the buildings went up in smoke, and the people ran out of the town, but the dragon was waiting for them and gobbled them up. Then, with one final roar, it head-butted the palace and it collapsed, killing everyone inside.”

Grinning, Vanitas crossed his arms behind his head. “And then the dragon had the princess for dinner and lived happily ever after. The end!”

There was silence. Aqua had her face buried in Terra’s side, and Terra himself was staring at Vanitas, slack-jawed.

Ven slammed his head against the wall.

“Wasn’t that a great story?” Vanitas asked.

“They all _died_?” Terra demanded.

“Except the dragon.”

A pause.

Terra bounced up and down, crying, “That was amazing! Tell it again!”

“Wait, you actually liked that?” Ven detached his forehead from the wall.             

Haughtily, Vanitas said, “It’s all in the way you tell it. And I tell stories much better than you, Ventus.”

Ven ignored that jab. “Okay, well, that’s _two_ stories. Now you guys have to go to sleep. Vanitas, can you take Aqua back to her room while I wrestle Terra into bed?”

Of course, that was exactly the wrong thing to say, because the second Terra heard the word ‘wrestle’, he became excited. “You can try!” he declared. “But you can’t defeat me!”

As Terra leapt on top of his desk and howled war cries, Ven muttered, “What have I done?”

* * *

Outside in the hall, Vanitas giddily listened to the sounds of Ven unsuccessfully trying to get Terra into bed. Sounded like he had dodged a bullet by taking Aqua. On his side of things, Aqua went along with him peacefully, chewing her thumb.

“Okay, get in,” he said, pulling back the covers on her bed.

Aqua climbed into bed and he dropped the covers back on top of her, but before he could turn away, she whispered, “Did they really all die?”

Oh. Apparently his story hadn’t been as well-received as he had thought. “Maybe,” he said evasively.

“I don’t like that story,” she said quietly.

Vanitas sighed. “They didn’t die,” he lied. “Turns out it was just a crazy dream.”

“Then what really happened?”

Sensing he wasn’t going to get out of this one, Vanitas starting crafting a new story. Somewhere along the way, he decided it was easier to sit on the bed and tell it. So he sat there with her, telling a story he had stuffed with the sappiest, most cliché things he could think of – whatever he thought Aqua may like.

And, well, it worked. The knight hadn’t even slayed the dragon by the time Aqua fell asleep. She was using his lap as a pillow, curled up against his leg like a kitten, her body warm. He stared down at her, surprised and disappointed that she wasn’t awake to hear the conclusion (he had worked hard on this, y’know!). He reached down and stroked her hair, just to check that she was really sleeping.

There was no noise except their breathing. Vanitas exhaled. It was like he and Aqua were in their own little world, separate from the others. He played with her hair a little more, brushing it away from her eyes.

This was . . . _nice_.

To his shock, he didn’t leave. Not until Ventus came around and snapped the first picture at least, and then he was up and chasing the other boy through the halls.


	37. Xehanort Snaps

_Breathe in, breathe out_. This Xehanort chanted to himself as he basked in the moonlight. It had been a trying day. Some fool, some great fool, had earlier deemed it necessary to gather up all the pillows and blankets in the castle. They had reappeared later, of course – in the form of an avalanche that crashed into him on the stairs. Though Ventus and Terra swore it was meant for Vanitas, those two weren’t exactly the type to be trusted. No child was.

Then, after that, Eraqus had the _brilliant_ idea to saddle him with preparing dinner. _Him_! The other Master had quickly changed his mind however, after a couple of the dishes Xehanort had attempted to prepare exploded.

That was why he was currently standing by the open window, letting the cool air take the edge of his rage. Coexisting with these children was . . . tiring. Once this problem was dealt with, he was going to go home and sleep for a long time.

“Master Xehanort!”

“Darkness, help me,” Xehanort muttered.

He didn’t move as Aqua came in. “Master Xehanort!”

“What is it?” he growled, teeth clenched.

“Do you want a cookie?”

“A cookie.” He turned finding that indeed, she was offering him a plate with a cookie on it.

“Uh-huh,” she said happily. “Me and Master made them. Do you want one?”

“No.”

And she left. She _left_. Xehanort couldn’t move for a second, too stunned that it had actually been that easy. She was gone, and his back hadn’t been further injured!

He was in the middle of his silent celebrations when she returned. Then, his smirk dropped into a deep scowl.

“What is it now?” he demanded.

“Master said you might want a glass of milk with your cookie,” she said, and indeed, she was offering him a plate with a cookie on it _and_ a glass of milk.

“I don’t want a cookie,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Now, go!”

He grabbed her by the scuff of her neck and tried to spin her towards the door. He must have pushed a little too hard however, as Aqua tripped over her feet, and the cup of milk went flying right onto his feet.

“Oops. Sorry,” she said.

Xehanort stood there in stony silence, his fists clenching tighter each second. He could feel the milk soaking into his shoes, making his toes sticky.

“Why is it,” he asked, “that I must put up with such idiocy?”

“Sorry.” Aqua backed away, eying the door.

“ _Sorry_!” Xehanort snarled. “Is that all you have to say? Get over here, girl!”

He grabbed her before she could run, throwing her away from the door and towards his desk. She bounced off with a squeak, staring up at him with terrified eyes.

“I am tired of being the victim of your constant stupidity!” he shouted, grabbing her shoulders and knocking the back of her head against the wood again. She groped at the sore spot, hunching into herself, trying to burrow into the desk. She sniffled loudly as she began to cry.

 _Good_.

“What does it take to get some respect around here?” he demanded, shaking her. “I wager that Eraqus doesn’t face half the trials I do! Well, does he?”

“N-no . . .”

“Then why must I?”

He shoved her away from him, and lifted his hand, the darkness automatically rushing to it –

And Vanitas neatly stepped between the two, hands held up, a smirk on his face. “Might want to reconsider,” he said casually to his Master. “Old Eraqus wouldn’t be pleased with that.”

Xehanort glanced at his hand, which was radiating darkness. With a growl, he dismissed the darkness. But that didn’t mean the girl was off the hook yet.

“She needs to be taught her place,” Xehanort said, “and it appears Eraqus is not willing to do that.”

“Then go _talk_ to him,” Vanitas said, rolling his eyes. “Maybe then Eraqus will do something. I mean you can take care of things yourself if you really want, but you know Eraqus hates it when other people muscle in on his territory.”

Xehanort sneered at the girl, who cowered. “It may be worth it,” he said.

“Then let me do it,” Vanitas said. “That way you won’t be on Eraqus’ bad side.”

Xehanort nodded. “Excellent idea, Vanitas. Do as you will with her.”

Vanitas grabbed the girl. “Come on,” he grunted, pulling her towards the door. “Let’s go.”

As the two left, Xehanort smirked. Such a piece of work, Vanitas was; dark, twisted, sadistic . . . the perfect apprentice for his needs! And as the boy had just displayed, he had quite the cunning mind as well. Not to mention that he was as loyal as a hound.

Xehanort sighed, content. No doubt the girl was being shown exactly where she stood.

* * *

Vanitas knew his grip was too tight, but he didn’t care. His fury lay coiled inside him, like a snake preparing to strike. He forced Aqua to march along without mercy, not stopping until they were far from Xehanort’s room. Only then did he speak.

“Remember what I told you?” he said in a tight voice. “ _Stay away from Xehanort’s room?_ ”

She nodded listlessly.

“Then why _didn’t you_?” He let go of her suddenly, spinning around so that he faced her. “I gave you one simple instruction, _one_! Was it really that hard to obey?”

“Master told me to ask –”

“I don’t care what he said!” he bellowed, slamming her against the wall. “I told you to stay away!”

She sobbed even harder, grasping at the back of her head again, and that’s when it hit him.

He was acting like Xehanort.

His grip slackened, and she struggled free and ran, not looking back. He stared after her.

 _It’s her fault,_ he told himself. _She should have listened to me._ That’s what he told himself on the way back to his room.

That’s what he told himself while he was brushing his teeth.

That’s what he told himself while he was lying in bed.

Staring at the ceiling, he sighed. He closed his eyes, reached inside himself, and tore a bit of darkness away from his heart. He forced it out of him, and let it take shape.

* * *

Alone in her room, Aqua cried into her pillow. Why was everyone being so mean to her? It had been an accident, but Master Xehanort and Vanitas wouldn’t stop yelling at her –and they had _hurt_ her!

She didn’t notice the door open and close again, nor the tiny tapping of feet across the floor. What she did notice was the high-pitched keening sound, and the little figure that was suddenly sitting next to her.

She blinked, sniffling. “Blue?”

The cat-that-was-not-a-cat purred and settled on her chest. She hugged it fiercely.


	38. Fathers

Terra was in a horribly grumpy mood today. Not only was he spending almost all his time in his room, but he had kicked Vanitas during an argument, refused to speak to Ven and – most alarmingly – had _snapped at Aqua_. And unfortunately for Ven, Eraqus had chosen today to shop for groceries (and Master Xehanort didn’t seem to care about what was going on), leaving him to deal with the situation.

He knocked on Terra’s door. “Hey, want to talk yet?”

No answer.

Ven lingered, rocking from foot to foot. He stretched and looked around, hoping that someone would come to his aid. But it appeared he was on his own.

He walked into Terra’s room without permission, finding the young boy hidden under his sheets. When Ven lifted them, Terra hissed, and a tendril of darkness slipped out and slapped Ven’s wrist. Hard! Ven cradled the sore limb, glaring half-heartedly at the other boy.

“What’s up with you?” Ven asked.

Terra retreated back into his little den.

Ven sat down on the bed, rubbing Terra’s back through the sheets. At least, he rubbed what he assumed was Terra’s back. “You can talk to me,” Ven said. “I’m not going to get mad at you.”

Terra shifted, but said nothing.

He would have said more, but there was a sudden crash from Aqua’s room. “Talk to me when you’re ready,” Ven said, as he stood up to leave.

Thankfully, Aqua wasn’t injured. It appeared that she had only knocked a chair over. Not that she was using it anyways. She was lying on her stomach, frowning in concentration as she wrote something with a crayon. From what Ven could see, it was a picture of herself, and an older man that didn’t seem to be Eraqus.

“What are you doing?” he asked, leaning over.

“Making a card.”

“For what?”

She smiled. “Daddy!”

“Daddy?” he repeated. “Why . . .? Oh! Father’s Day, right.”

And suddenly, things made so much sense.

He returned to Terra’s room, armed with this new knowledge. Now that he knew what was bugging Terra, the question became how best to approach it. Standing in Terra’s doorway, he thought it over for a few minutes, before deciding the blunt approach was best.

“So, Father’s Day, huh,” he said, claiming back his seat on the bed. “Not exactly the happiest time for everyone.”

The lump that was Terra twitched.

“You know, fathers come in all sorts of different forms,” Ven said. He didn’t know a whole lot about Terra’s parents, but he did know that for whatever reason, Terra had no contact with them, and that was enough for him to figure out what to say next. “Some of them are with you when you’re born, and others don’t show up until later. Why, some people don’t find their true fathers for a really long time.”

Terra poked his head out, looking at him like he was crazy. “What are you talking about? Everyone knows who their father is.”

Ouch. That hurt. Ven hid his pain with a forced smile. “Father’s just a label you give someone, Terra. It’s your choice who to give it to.”

Terra did not comment on that. “What’s your dad like?”

“I-I . . .” Ven stretched again, nervously this time. “I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?” Terra demanded.

“I can’t remember.”

* * *

Well, that conversation certainly hadn’t gone his way. Apparently, the concept of amnesia escaped Terra (ironic considering his situation), and he became certain that Ven was lying to him. For Terra’s sake – and his own – Ven had ended things there and left before things got nasty.

So, he sat on a couch in the lounge, feet on the armrest. He played with his shirt, the clothes on his back being the only connection he had to his long-lost past. That and his keyblade, of course. But he couldn’t even remember where he got either of them. That was lost, along with any memory of a parent or childhood.

“Ok, what’s wrong with you?” Vanitas demanded.

Ven shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Vanitas scoffed. “Normally, you’re an irritating ball of sunshine. So when you’re not, it’s pretty obvious.”

“It’s Father’s Day,” Ven said casually.

“Oh.” Vanitas pushed his feet aside and sat on the armrest. “Moping over your lost memories.”

“Yeah . . . hey, how did you know?”

Vanitas paused for a few seconds. “I . . . overheard you talking about it once.”

Ven stared at him suspiciously, but didn’t press the issue. “Yeah, it makes Father’s Day a bit of a downer . . .”

To his surprise, Vanitas snorted. “Will you get over yourself?” he snapped. “You seem to have it pretty good to me.”

“Good? I can’t even remember who my parents are!”

“So?” Vanitas asked. “You have Eraqus, don’t you? Do you really need to add another one to the mix?”

Ven shook his head. “It’s not the same.”

“Seems like it to me. You know,” Vanitas tapped his chin, as if reaching some difficult conclusion, “you could try asking who they are.” In a low voice he muttered, “I bet _Eraqus_ tell you if he knew. But seriously, get over yourself. There are people worse off than you.”

“Like you would know!” Ven said. “You have a father.”

The darkening of Vanitas’ glare told him that he couldn’t be more wrong.

“Oh. . .” Ven’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know-”

“That’s because you don’t think,” Vanitas sneered.

“Vanitas . . .”

Vanitas stood up abruptly. “If I had Eraqus as a Master,” he said calmly, “I would be happy. Certainly, I wouldn’t go around bugging everyone with my non-existent misery.”

Ven winced, realizing this conversation wasn’t going very well either. Before he could make amends though, Vanitas was gone.

But . . .

He thought he had some idea now about how to comfort Terra.

* * *

Eraqus walked through the door, his arms full of groceries. He looked around the foyer, hoping that there would be someone to help with his load, but it appeared he was alone.

He made his way to the kitchen, nudging the door open with his foot and then depositing the bags on the counter. He was about to begin putting food away, when he saw a small note. It was written in thick green crayon, and addressed to him.

‘ _Master_ ’, it read, ‘ _go to your office_.’

Curious, Eraqus put the food aside and obeyed. He saw nothing amiss on the way; well, Vanitas did look at him with a sneer, but that was normal.

He opened the door to his office, and was immediately assaulted with a shower of pink and white flowers.

“What in Light’s name . . .?”

Terra broke through the curtain of flowers. “Happy Father’s Day, Master!”

He held out a large card, which Eraqus gladly took. On the inside, had been scribbled a picture of himself with his apprentices, all smiling. The card was signed by all three of the students, and looking up, he saw Ventus grinning at him from his desk, Aqua nibbling on a cookie next to him.

“This is very nice,” Eraqus said. “Thank you, Terra. And you as well, Aqua and Ventus.”

He hugged his giddy brunet apprentice, and then moved onto the other two.

“So, you’ve brought the groceries back?” Ventus asked innocently.

“I have,” Eraqus said. “Why do you ask?”

Ventus didn’t answer right away. “Come on, guys,” he said to the other two. “We’ve got to go put them away!”

“That is not necessary . . .”

Ventus waved off his Master’s protests. “It’s Father Day,” he said. “We’ll do it today.”

The apprentices scampered off, leaving Eraqus with his petal-covered floor and the card. He glanced downwards, then decided to leave cleaning until later and went to his room.

At the foot of his bed sat an old chest. He tapped the lock with Master Keeper, and then opened it easily. This chest was one filled with all his important keepsakes; tomes on the Land of Departure and his role as its guardian; the medallion he had been awarded when he passed his Mastery Exam; a figurine of a keyblade warrior his father had carved for him.

And there, in the corner, was a stack of all the other cards Eraqus had received on this day throughout the years.

He smiled, and shuffled through them briefly, remembering each occasion vividly. He was about to add this latest card to the bunch when he suddenly changed his mind.

Maybe he’d keep this one close for now.


	39. Babies

“Here you go, Aqua!”

Ven handed Aqua a can, which she placed with the rest inside the cabinet. They had just put away the last of the groceries (Terra was confirming that by sticking his head in all the bags), which meant that they were now free to have fun. Aqua held her arms out, begging with big eyes, and Ven obliged her, scooping her up. Aqua’s feet immediately dug into his sides as she tried to climb, and with a good-natured sigh, Ven readjusted her, allowing her to sit on his shoulders.

“Are we good, Terra?” he asked.

Terra, still with a bag over his head, said, “Yep!”

Ven walked over and plucked the bag off, causing Terra to fall back from the sudden shock. “Wasn’t that a nice thing to do for Father’s Day?” Ven asked.

Terra nodded, sensing that was the correct answer. Aqua didn’t answer the question, but asked one of her own.

“What exactly _is_ a father?” she asked.

“Someone who takes care of you,” Ven said.

“B-but . . .” She frowned, thinking hard. “Doesn’t that make you my father, too?”

He laughed uncomfortably. “Not really. I’m more like your brother.”

“But why!” Aqua demanded. “Why can’t you be my father?”

Ho boy. Ven could feel the heat rushing to his face. “Fathers are special,” he said evasively. “They love you, and take care of you, and . . .”

“But you do that!” Aqua cried. “Why aren’t you my father, too?”

He groaned. “Aqua, I wasn’t even alive when you were born.”

Terra stared up at him in shock. “You weren’t?”

Oh. Right. Both his friends thought they were younger than him. He fumbled for an answer, intelligently spluttering, “Err, it’s complicated . . .”

“Why does that matter?” Aqua asked. “What do fathers have to do with being born?”

No. NO. Nononono. He knew _exactly_ what this was leading into, and was determined to avoid it by any means necessary. He opened his mouth, intent on telling a little white lie, when Terra neatly destroyed his plans.

Terra said, “You need fathers to make babies, Aqua.”

“But why?”

Both the kids looked expectantly at Ven, who was trying to figure out the quickest way to shake Aqua off him and run.

“Ven,” Terra said, “how are babies made?”

* * *

At the sound of the knock, Eraqus said, “Come in.”

Terra and Aqua walked in, smiling widely. “Master!” Terra crowed. “We have a question for you.”

“Do you, now?” Eraqus set down his quill and smiled at the two children. “And what may that be?”

And Terra innocently asked. “Where do babies come from?”

His eyes bugging out, Eraqus twitched violently, knocking the report he’d been working on off the desk. The barbs of his quill fluttered, as if shivering. “In Light’s name, why are you asking me this?”

“Ven told us to ask you,” Terra said.

 _Ventus_. Eraqus would make sure that the apprentice paid for this. It had been uncomfortable enough the first time to explain these concepts to Terra (in Aqua’s case, he had thankfully been able to convince the Fairy Godmother to speak with her). He’d been hoping that Terra would be the only person he’d have to have this talk with, as he always assumed that Terra would explain to Ventus when the time me.

“Well,” Eraqus said, “they come from a mother and father.”

“Yes, we know,” Terra said impatiently, “but _how_?”

“That is a good question,” Eraqus said, stalling for time. “You see, Terra, sometimes a man loves a woman very much, and well . . . they decide to have a child.”

“And?” Both the children were crowding at his feet, staring at him as if this was the best story ever.

“They . . . err . . . well . . . how to explain this?”

Eraqus groaned, looking over the two kids. If it had just been Terra, maybe he would have told the truth, but _Aqua_ was here, too. She was much, much too young to learn about any of this. Who knew what kind of effect it would have on her?

So he fell back to an old tale.

“They write a letter,” Eraqus said, “to the stork. Then the stork brings them a child!”

“Storks can read?” Terra said doubtfully.

“This one can.”

Aqua said okay and left, so he thought this was over and he had successfully avoided a crisis. But Terra lingered, his eyes narrowed. “That’s not what Vanitas said.”

“Vanitas?” Eraqus blinked. “What did he say?”

“He said they have sex,” Terra said bluntly. “He also said he didn’t know what it was, but for some reason I’m not supposed to talk about it in front of little kids like Aqua.”

Forget Ventus. He was going to ask Xehanort if he could take Vanitas for a day just to have his revenge. “That is true . . .” he waffled.

“Okay, so what’s sex?”


	40. The Jungle Book

“So, you guys have gone to the washroom, right?”

Terra and Aqua nodded, and Ven had no idea whether or not they were telling the truth. But hey, if they weren’t, they would be the ones to suffer.

“Okay, then let’s go!”

He touched his shoulder, summoning his armour. Terra and Aqua copied him and soon enough, there was both a gold and a silver figure standing before him. Ven extended his arm, intent on calling his glider, when Vanitas neatly grabbed his wrist.

“I know a faster way,” the boy said. Unlike the other three, he still wore his casual clothes. With a flick of his wrist, he opened up a dark portal, and he beckoned the others towards it.

“Wow!” Terra said. “Can I do that?”

“Eventually you’ll be able to,” Vanitas said. “Now, let’s go.”

He and Terra marched fearlessly towards the portal. Aqua, on the other hand, lingered, clearly uncertain. Ven grabbed her hand tight, giving her a reassuring smile.

Then they, too, walked into the darkness.

* * *

Ven shook himself, still disoriented from when the portal had spat him out. The trees rose high above him, their large waxy leaves blotting out the sun. The ground below him was moist, as was the air itself, and carried a strong scent of mulch.

“Terra? Aqua? Vanitas?” He called out for his friends, turning in a full circle. He doubted they were far; he was more concerned over whether he’d recognize them.

He stepped forwards, sticks snapping under him. Now, where were they . . .?

The ground vibrated as a panther dropped down in front of him, claws unsheathed, eyes gleaming. Unlike Ven, this animal advanced silently, furred paws muffling its steps into silence. The fangs showed briefly as it hissed, and the fur on its back rippled with the expectation of pouncing.

Ven merely said, “Hi, Vanitas.”

Vanitas’ ears flicked with disappointment. “I was hoping you wouldn’t figure it out yet,” he said.

Ven shrugged – or at least tried to. It quickly became apparent though that wasn’t possible in his current form. “I just kind of knew,” he said. “I’m honestly not sure how.”

Vanitas grunted, and glanced behind him, presumably to check for the kids.

“So, what am I?” Ven asked. He looked down at his paws. “I can see I’m a cat of some sorts. . .”

“Leopard,” Vanitas answered.

“Cool!” Ven spun around, almost like he was chasing his tail. “Now, let’s go find the other two!”

It wasn’t that hard. Terra actually found them, and roaring, he charged out of the bushes in the form of a sloth bear, sulking when they refused to panic. Unlike most sloth bears, his was a more brownish colour, and he had a strange plume on his head that resembled his human hair. By no means were Ven and Vanitas big creatures, but Terra was about half their length, though stout.

Aqua was found by Ven, who had heard something that sounded like a blind animal making its way through the jungle. If Terra was small, then she was _tiny_ , barely even reaching the other child’s chin in height. Her dark blue fur looked more like a coat of fuzz and with her big blue eyes and clumsy gait, she looked like a pup who had opened her eyes for the first time.

“Aqua, look, I’m a bear!” Terra said, rising to two legs in front of her.

“I’m a doggy!” Aqua said.

“Actually,” Ven said, nudging her side, “you’re a wolf.”

“Oh, okay.”

Terra growled. “I’m going to eat you, Ven!”

He pounced, turning out to be much heavier than he looked. Caught off guard, Ven was knocked over, with Terra afterwards climbing on his chest. The small bear rolled over onto his side, teething on one of Ven’s legs. For his part, maybe it was because of the form he was in or maybe he just wasn’t thinking, Ven jerked forwards and playfully snapped at Terra.

“Let’s not have any bloodshed,” Vanitas smoothly said, swatting Terra’s head and shoving him off Ven. “It would be a shame if we had to leave early.”

“Can we go exploring?” Aqua asked, tail held high.

“Yes, but _together_ ,” Ven stressed. “No wandering off.”

* * *

With Aqua dangling from his jaws, Ven leapt to the top of the ledge, easily clearing it. Who would have guessed that his swift keyblade fighting style had given him such strong legs? Vanitas and Terra were already waiting for them when he and Aqua got there, having been able to climb by themselves.

He set Aqua down, who raised her muzzle in a brief howl before dashing to the edge. With Terra by her side, she stood there, basking in the world before her. They were at the top of a huge crag, and boy, it had taken some work to get them all up here without a portal (Aqua and Terra having insisted on physically climbing it). But when Ven heard the murmurs of wonder from the other two, he knew it had been worth it.

He laid down next to Terra, paws hanging over the edge. “Quite a sight, huh?”

“Is the Land of Departure this big?” Terra asked.

“Probably. Who knows? It might even be bigger.”

“Well, I’ll know,” Terra boasted. “Cause I’m going to explore all of it!”

Ven purred. “Not on your own. You know the rules.”

“But Ven!”

In the midst of his whining, Terra had staggered to his feet. Unfortunately, being a biped at heart, he misjudged his footing and stumbled towards the edge . . .

Only for Ven to deftly hook a paw under him and pull him back.

“Watch it,” he said.

He turned to watch Aqua, who was sniffing around a large tree. Something stirred in the tree above her, something long and scaly that was gradually winding its way downwards. Ven stood, tail flicking, eying the python that was creeping upon his friend.

He walked toward her. “Aqua, get behind me.”

Aqua stared at him in confusion, but listened. The python snapped its head up, yellow eyes wide with shock.

“Oh? So, sorry,” the python hissed, stretching the s in all his words. “Is this your friend?”

“Yes,” Ven said, still suspicious.

“Oh,” the python nodded his head, “I see. I did not mean to alarm you. Oh no, certainly not . . .”

The python dropped to the ground, curling up, staring deep into Ven’s eyes. And Ven . . . he . . . he felt very odd.

“ _Kaa!_ ”

Their gaze broke, and Ven’s whole body jumped with shock. His head ached faintly and shaking it, he backed away from the python, pushing Aqua back too with his paw.

Meanwhile Vanitas, the one who had shouted in the first place, was stalking towards them, hackles raised. “Kaa, what the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?” the panther snarled.

“V-Vanitas! What brings you here today?” The python attempted a weak smile.

Vanitas didn’t give him one back. Instead, he unsheathed his claws and held one to the python’s neck. “You didn’t answer my question,” Vanitas said.

“What’s going on?” Ven asked.

Terra bounded up to them. “Who’s the snake?”

“Kaa.” To the snake, Vanitas said, “Now, my question?”

Kaa blinked. “Oh, yes, certainly. It’s nothing involving you, Vanitas. Nothing at all. I just thought that well, it’s been a while since I’ve come across a wolf pup and . . .”

For some reason that answer set Vanitas off. Really set him off. With a roar, he swung, claws outstretched with what seemed to be the intent to rip Kaa’s eyes out. Luckily for Kaa though, he was swift and yanked his head out of range. With a frightened shout, he retreated back into the trees, leaving a spitting Vanitas behind.

There was a brief pause. Then Ven asked, “So, what was that about?”

Vanitas didn’t directly answer, but said, “He’s a hypnotist. Watch your step around him.”

Hypnotist? Ven shuddered. He had never been hypnotised before, but he didn’t like the sound of it.

Aqua tugged on his ear. “Ven, can we go to the river?”

* * *

Aqua barked with glee as she paddled in circles. Tongue lolling, she looked over at Terra and said, “Are you coming?”

Terra was perched on the riverbank, positioned as if to leap in. He’d been in that stance for a few minutes. Next to him was Ven, who lapped up some of the water before slipping in himself. With his head and the tip of his tail poking above the water, he swam over to where Aqua was, and then chirruped at Terra to join them.

He saw him take a deep breath, and then Terra jumped straight in. For a second, he disappeared completely. Then he broke the surface, eyes wide from the shock of the water’s chill.

All this time, Vanitas had been hanging out in a tree. Now though, he descended, having apparently decided he needed a drink.

“Come in, Vanitas!” Ven said. “The water’s great.”

Vanitas gave him a dirty look and then turned his back. Unfortunately for him, he also turned his back on Terra, who had happened to hear Ven’s demand. Without regret, Terra grabbed Vanitas’ tail in his teeth, and pulled him in.

Vanitas screamed. In a flash, he was back on ground, long gashes in the mud marking where he had scrambled for a foothold. His fur was fluffed up, making him look like twice his actual size.

“Vanitas, are you okay?” Ven rushed back to shore, pulling himself out of the water.

“Fine,” the panther spat.

“I. . .” A thought suddenly struck him. “Vanitas, can you swim?”

“Of course I can!” Vanitas said. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You’re lying,” Ven said calmly. He wasn’t particularly sure how he knew that, he just did. “You can’t swim.”

“So, what?” Vanitas’ tail curled around his paws. “Who needs to swim anyways?”

“It’s not that hard,” Ven said, “especially since we’re animals right now. We could show you easily enough.”

“Sounds like a waste of my time,” Vanitas sneered.

“Suit yourself,” Ven slipped back into the water, “but if you change your mind, we’re here.”

Out in the river, the apprentices began an impromptu game of tag. Vanitas watched from shore, tail lashing in annoyance. He watched as they switched to racing, then a game of keep-away and even what seemed to be an odd attempt at soccer.

Vanitas sighed.

He took a step into the water.


	41. Yen Sid: Master of Exposition

“You’re trying to kill me. You are actually trying to kill me!”

“Will you relax?” the leopard-shaped Ven snapped. “The water isn’t even up to your chin!”

Indeed, the waves were only lapping at Vanitas’ belly. Still, the panther had his head tilted back as if he was on the verge of being submerged completely.

Back on shore, Terra watched with what seemed to be amusement. Honestly, Ven couldn’t really blame him. They’d moved to shallower water just to ease Vanitas into swimming, but the apprentice was still acting like they’d thrown him into the rapids. It was just a good thing that Aqua was napping against Terra’s chest, because if Vanitas had seen the five-year old giggling at him, he probably would have given up there.

“You have to go further in,” Ven said.

Vanitas growled. He took a step forwards, and then took one back, ears starting to lay flat against his skull. Ven had never seen him this nervous before – scratch that. He had never seen Vanitas nervous before.

“Humans, and animals, are naturally buoyant,” Ven said, trying to reassure Vanitas. “You don’t even have to do anything and you’ll still float.”

Still, it didn’t look like Vanitas planned on entering the water anytime soon. So, Ven took things into his own hands (or paws, whatever the expression was for an animal). He shoved Vanitas forwards.

“Stop, _stop!_ ” Vanitas demanded, attempting to dig his claws into the river’s bottom. “You’re going to drown me!”

“You won’t drown,” Ven said. “Just relax.”

The water was up to Vanitas’ neck and judging by the way he had wrenched his head back, Ven guessed he would have neck pains in the morning.

“Relax,” Ven repeated. “Just trust me.”

About half a minute passed before Vanitas listened to him, but he did, albeit very, very slowly. Once Ven noticed that his claws were no longer tearing apart the ground, he leisurely nudged Vanitas forwards, until the panther was in water too deep for him.

“Stop moving,” Ven ordered as Vanitas started to struggle, “just trust me.”

Vanitas listened, and Ven positioned himself so that the panther’s chin was on his neck. With Ven supporting him and his body’s natural buoyancy, Vanitas began to float.

“See, it’s not so bad, it is?” Ven asked, trying to hide just how much harder he had to work to support the other boy. “Now, you’re going to take your paw – let’s say the right one to begin with – and extend it in front of you, then scoop the water as you bring it back. Then the same with the other paw, and keep alternating like that. Okay?”

The first time Vanitas tried it, it was more like a sporadic twitch. But with some encouragement from Ven and even a cheer from Terra, Vanitas began to move properly. At first, Ven swam with him. Then, once he was sure Vanitas wouldn’t freak out, he let him be, watching carefully as the panther swam on his own.

Of course, just because he could swim didn’t mean he had to like it. The second Vanitas was convinced he had mastered this skill, he was back on shore shaking the water out of his fur.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Ven asked, joining his friends on shore.

Vanitas snorted. “ _Nothing’s_ hard for me once I figure it out.”

“Whatever you say.” Had Ven been in his normal form, he would have been beaming. However, he was currently a leopard, so that emotion was instead expressed by him kneading the ground.

Vanitas look at him a little strangely and seemed poised to say something. Instead though, he suddenly stiffened, staring at something beyond Ven’s shoulder. Ven looked back to see a giant tiger prowling towards them, grey eyes locked on Terra and Aqua. Vanitas snarled, bristling, but he was the only one to have that reaction. Ven had chirruped in greeting, and Terra was currently running towards the tiger, after jolting Aqua awake.

“Master!”

Vanitas blinked, looking disappointed that he wasn’t going to get a fight.

Ven ran up to Eraqus. “Hi, Master! I didn’t think you were going to join us.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Eraqus said. “But things have changed.”

“Really?”

Eraqus nodded. “Yen Sid has a cure.”

* * *

Eraqus watched Terra uncertainly as he sat on the metal table, awaiting his treatment. It wasn’t that he distrusted the old wizard, but after what had happened last they had tried to cure the boy . . . Eraqus had doubts.

“You are positive this will be a success?” Eraqus asked the former keyblade Master.

“No harm will come to him,” Yen Sid said. “Xehanort may be gifted enough in magic to rival myself, but I am much more experienced in treating magical disorders. If something goes wrong, I will know – though personally, I am shocked that Xehanort did not realize what was happening to Terra.”

“I think I may have distracted him,” Eraqus admitted with a wince.

“Perhaps, but rest assured, that won’t happen here. Each of us has our duties to attend to.”

“What exactly are we doing?” Eraqus asked.

“Simple. We will detach the Youth Spell from Terra’s magical core, and then we shall extract it just as you and Xehanort attempted.” Yen Sid turned to a computer keyboard, typing something into it. “It’s a rather simple concept; the difficult part is trying to separate the spell from the core. I liken it to wriggling a fish off a hook, only the hook will spear the fish again when you release it.”

Eraqus nodded. “I see. So how will we accomplish that?”

“Well, my first instinct was to find some incantation or rune that would hold those hooks in place – a very difficult task, might I add. However, I was speaking with Merlin a few days ago, and he gave me the brilliant idea to use a distraction. Terra needs to put be under for this procedure anyways, so I shall do that with a Sleep spell. Then, when I remove one of the Youth spell’s hooks from Terra’ core, I shall embed the hook into the Sleep spell instead. So long as that spell remains active, the Youth spell should not attach itself to Terra’s core again. And that’s where you come in, my friend. After I cast the spell, you must lend your strength to ensure it remains active.”

Eraqus looked back at Terra. If this went wrong . . .

“I trust you,” Eraqus said. “Shall we begin?”

Yen Sid put Terra to sleep, and then the two Masters began their work. With his eyes closed, Yen Sid muttered phrases under his breath, no doubt navigating the magical mess that was the Youth spell and Terra’s core. Eraqus had his eyes open, and he merely kept a hand on Terra’s shoulder, channelling more power into him whenever he felt Yen Sid’s spell weaken.

They stayed at it for a long, long time. Eraqus was starting to become fatigued as magic continued to leave him, and that made him worry. What if he didn’t have enough magic for this task? If the procedure was interrupted prematurely, would Terra be harmed? Countless worst-case scenarios flied through his mind, making him grow rigid.

Yen Sid’s eyes snapped open. Before Eraqus could speak, the wizard murmured, “Keep the spell going.” With that said, Yen Sid walked over to a machine, the same one Eraqus and Xehanort had used in their first attempt to cure Terra. The machine rumbled to life and Eraqus released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

A minute ticked by. Then another.

Eraqus stirred. This had never taken so long in his experience. “Yen Sid . . .”

But just as he spoke, the machine chimed, a green light shining below a label that read ‘Complete’.

Hardly a second passed, and then there was a huge explosion of light, with Terra at its center.

When the white spots in their vision cleared and they could see again, Terra was awake and moving. Groaning, he sat up, rubbing his forehead. He blinked upon seeing the two Masters staring at him.

“Master,” the very adult Terra said, looking around in confusion, “what happened?”


	42. The End of it All

The four apprentices stood in the hall, Aqua staring up at Terra, who gently smiled down at her. Forget being short in comparison to Ven – she wasn’t even up to Terra’s waist! Terra seemed to be taking this change in events well, considering everything. Certainly, he didn’t have the panic attack that Ven did when his friends had first fallen into the fountain.

“You’re so tall!” Aqua shrieked.

Terra laughed. “Nah, you’re just short.”

“Are you Terra’s brother?”

“We can go with that.”

Aqua held her arms out, and Terra responded immediately. He scooped her up, settling her on one arm, while he rubbed her back. Aqua looked around, amazed by the height she found herself at, and Terra gazed upon her fondly. He seemed to be adapting quite well to this, though it probably helped that he knew Aqua would be back to normal within a day or so.

“Ven, I’m as tall as you!” Aqua said.

Terra said, “Actually, you’re taller. It’s just Ven’s hair that makes it look like you’re the same height.” That said, Terra reached out and ruffled the younger boy’s hair.

“Not the hair!” Ven squawked, ducking back to hide behind Vanitas.

“Coward,” Vanitas scoffed.

“So,” Terra rubbed the back of his neck, “we met when I was a kid . . . Does that count as a proper introduction?”

Vanitas raised his eyebrows. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Vaguely,” Terra said. “It’s like a dream. Maybe the memories will become stronger in time, but for now . . . not particularly.”

“Well, in that case. . .” In one dramatic move, Vanitas uncrossed his arms from behind his head. “I’m Vanitas, Xehanort’s apprentice.”

“Ah, the slouching, lazy man,” Terra said with a twinkle in his eyes.

Vanitas grinned.

“It’s a shame you can’t remember much,” Ven said casually.

“Yep, too bad,” Terra said, not sounding at all disappointed.

“It’s not like I made a photo album of you guys as kids or anything . . . “

Terra paused. “You what?”

A second passed, and then Ven was running away, cackling madly.

“Should I be alarmed?” Terra asked.

Vanitas shrugged. “Considering the type of things you got up to, yeah, I would be.”

At that point, Eraqus walked through a door connected to the hallway they stood in. He gave Terra the barest of nods, and then went back inside.

Terra readjusted Aqua on his arm. “Well, looks like it’s your turn, sport.”

“Hope it goes well,” Vanitas said vaguely.

Terra frowned, picking up on what the boy hadn’t said. “You’re not sticking around?”

“Can’t,” Vanitas said. “I got duties I have to attend to. But I’m sure I’ll see you guys again. . .”

“Okay, it’s been nice meeting you.” Terra shook Vanitas’ hand firmly. “Say bye, Aqua.”

“Bye, Vani!”

“Vani?” Vanitas repeated, revulsion in his tone. He stared at her, glanced up at Terra, and then looked at her again before saying, “I’ll let it slide this time.”

And with that, Vanitas left them, leaving Terra and Aqua to their fates. Terra followed Master Eraqus into the medical room, handing off his younger friend to the old Master. He turned, reaching out to shut the door –

A tendril of darkness shot out from his hand, wrapped around the knob, and pulled the door shut.

Terra smirked. Just imagine all the pranks he could pull on Ven now!

* * *

Vanitas walked into the gloomy cavern, spying his Master inside. Xehanort was standing on a ledge, overlooking the magical waters that made up the Fountain of Youth. Whatever he was thinking. . . Vanitas didn’t really care to know. But it must have been important, for why else would Xehanort have summoned him?

“You rang?” Vanitas asked.

Hands clasped behind his back, Xehanort did not turn away from the fountain. “I did. Did the procedure work?”

“Yep.” Vanitas absently kicked a rock across the ground. “Terra’s back to normal and they’re working on the girl right –”

“Grab her.”

Vanitas gave a start. “What?”

Xehanort turned around. “Grab her before the procedure finishes, and bring her to me.”

Vanitas did not leave to follow his Master’s instructions. Instead, he gave Xehanort a bewildered stare. “Why?” he demanded.

“Terra and Ventus are protective of their friends, yes?” Xehanort asked, voice deceptively soft.

“Yes,” Vanitas said slowly.

“This means that the girl is perfect bait for both of them! Even better, if she remains a child, there is nothing she can do to stop us. She will be at our mercy, and all that is needed is a scar on her face to drive Terra into darkness.” Xehanort turned back to the water, staring at his reflection. “Whoever thought this Fountain would herald such a brilliant plan?”

Unbeknownst to Xehanort, Vanitas’ stare grew very intense. “What happens to her after?”

“She can be disposed of. She will be of no further use to us.” Xehanort wrung his hands together, pondering. “We do not even have to do anything to her. She had no keyblade; we can just leave her in the desert and the vultures will pick at her bones before long. A flawless plan, isn’t it Vanitas -?”

Xehanort froze. He had turned around, so he could profess his brilliance face-to-face with his apprentice. However, he had gotten a little more than he had bargained for. For some reason, Vanitas was standing very, very close. Had Xehanort had hair, it would have been brushing the boy’s face.

“Vanitas, what are you doing?”

Vanitas cocked his head to one side.

And then he pushed Xehanort.

Perched on the ledge Xehanort had been formerly standing on, Vanitas chuckled as he watched his Master thrash. Apparently, the old man wasn’t much better at swimming than he was. Eventually though, Xehanort found his way to shore, and he pulled himself out of the water and climbed up to his level.

“Vanitas!” Xehanort snarled. “How dare you –”

Xehanort paused, and Vanitas saw surprise light up his face when he realized how much taller he currently was.

No, wait, that wasn’t entirely true. He wasn’t taller; he just no longer needed to slouch.

“How is this . . .?” Xehanort’s eyes widened when he realized just what Vanitas had done.

“How long until your memories fade?” Vanitas sneered.

“You -!”

Xehanort made to charge, but there was one problem with that.

No keyblade.

Vanitas ducked out of the way easily, laughing manically. “I’ll come back for you in a few days,” he said, “once your memories are gone. I’ll throw you in Port Royal, and you can be a pirate or something. I think you’d enjoy that.”

“You -!”

“Or you could just open your own portal and go there now. Your choice.”

As Xehanort roared, Vanitas teleported himself safely away. He found a nook near the cavern’s ceiling, and hid there, waiting to see what his former Master would do next. Xehanort paced furiously, spluttering threats even though he was presumably alone. Eventually, he disappeared into a portal.

And seeing this, Vanitas grinned victoriously. He leapt down from the nook, walked out of the cavern and into the blinding sunlight. Arms crossed behind his head, he murmured, “Someday, the universe will thank me.”

He stared up at the sky. Now what?

With a shrug, he opened a portal and walked into it.

He hoped that Eraqus had made enough dinner for five people.


	43. Epilogue

So, where are our heroes now?

Well, with Terra and Aqua cured, things quickly fell into back into their usual routine, bar a few days of rest for poor Eraqus and Ven. Unfortunately for Ven, neither of his two friends seemed to really remember being a child, which meant that he had no one to laugh with about the past.

. . . But at least he had his pictures!

Ven leafed through the photo album he had made, smiling at the shenanigans his child-sized friends had gotten into. He was sprawled out on the living room’s couch, feet on the armrest in a manner that was eerily similar to another apprentice his age. Not far from him, a fire crackled, sending comforting waves of heat through the air. He sighed fondly, flipping another page.

Aqua and Terra, adult-sized, walked in, the latter eating an apple. “What are you looking at, Ven?” he asked.

“Photos.”

Terra said nothing for a second as he awaited an explanation that didn’t come. “Photos of . . .?”

“You two. As kids.”

“Really?” Aqua said. “You have pictures?”

Aqua was smiling, her face bright as she thought about what might be in that album. Terra, on the other hand, had taken on a cornered-animal expression.

“You have fun with that!” Terra said, backing out of the room.

Aqua stopped him. “You’re not leaving, are you? Come on, Terra. I bet you were adorable.”

“Maybe, but . . .”

His mumble was cut short as Aqua grabbed his ear and dragged him over to where Ven sat.

“Okay Aqua, here’s a picture of you sleeping on Vanitas. I hope you realize I risked my life to get that photo!” As Ven spoke, he sat up straight, like a proud parent.

“Aww,” she said. “I wish I could remember him more clearly . . . he’s not mad at me, is he?”

“At you? Probably not,” Ven assured her. “And here’s a picture of Terra with Eraqus.”

Terra coloured as Aqua cooed over his younger self. When she commented on how cute he was, Terra couldn’t help but say, “Well, I’m pretty cute now, too. Anyways, I have things to do so I _really_ have to go!”

Terra said that quickly, nervously, and Ven looked up at him, suspicious. It was almost like Terra knew what to expect-

That liar! He _did_ remember.

Filled with righteous fury, Ven flipped to a page near the back – one that he hadn’t intended on showing Aqua. Terra had made a grave error in deceiving him when he had all these weapons at hand.

Ven firmly jabbed his finger onto one particular photo. “This is where Terra decided to see what wearing one of your bras was like!”

In a low voice, Terra said, “Ven, I’m going to kill you.”

* * *

Eraqus exchanged his duties as babysitter for his old job of being a keyblade Master. The surrogate father duty stayed however, though it had been like that even before the Fountain of Youth.

Speaking of which, Eraqus had sent a memo out to all of his fellow Masters warning them to keep themselves and their apprentices away from the fountain. Naturally, that meant that within a week, there were over a dozen new cases.

Which meant that Yen Sid was not pleased.

Through the crystal orb, Yen Sid said, “Eraqus, if one more Master contacts me about their apprentice deaging, I am going to tell them to drop the child off at _your_ castle.”

Eraqus winced. “I told them to stay away from the Fountain of Youth! I don’t know why so many are suddenly feeling the need to investigate it.”

Yen Sid stared at him critically. “You clearly know very little about psychology, Eraqus. But that is not why you contacted me. Speak quickly; I have another Master on hold.”

“Yes . . .” Eraqus cleared his throat. “I was wondering if . . . if you . . . well, that is . . .”

“Out with it.”

Eraqus closed his eyes. “Do you have any books on how to hone the powers of darkness?”

Yen Sid said nothing for almost half a minute. “You are asking me for a book on how to hone darkness? You, Eraqus?”

“It’s Terra,” Eraqus said, feeling guilty for asking the question in the first place. “He needs training with it, and I can’t seem to contact Xehanort . . .”

“I do have such a tome. Send one of your apprentices to pick it up.”

Eraqus sighed. “Thank you, my friend. I will send Terra right away.”

* * *

Vanitas wandered from world to world, always seeming to gravitate back to the Land of Departure for food. Eventually, he just decided to take over the guest room next to Ven’s. His constant presence at meals and his former duty as babysitter meant that no one actually realized he wasn’t supposed to be there for nearly a month. When asked, Vanitas casually said that Xehanort had intended to use him to destroy the universe, and that if they didn’t want him there, he could always go back to his Master and do that.

No one asked what he was doing there after that.

Ven and Vanitas, having been through so much together, became great friends (“Almost like twins,” Terra would mutter). They quickly discovered that they had lots of interests in common. Too much. Almost like they were the same person . . .

No one caught on though, and Vanitas decided not to tell. He and Ven seemed to be doing fine apart, so why ruin that?

He really was doing great. It had been a very, very long time since the unversed showed up. The darkness of his heart, once freezing cold to the touch, held gentle warmth now, like smouldering embers. He wasn’t sure whether it was from being around the light so much, if he was absorbing that light, but he didn’t really care. He was content to let a miracle stay a miracle.

Terra and Vanitas became friends too, with Vanitas becoming Terra’s default mentor for all things darkness-related. In regards to Aqua, well sadly her memories of being a child never became more than a fleeting dream, but she seemed to have some unconscious recollection of what had happened, and she and Vanitas bonded swiftly and deeply. There was just one problem.

Sometimes, Vanitas seemed to forget she was no longer a child and hence, no longer in need of his protection . . .

* * *

“I was thinking that once I become a hero, we could go on a date!”

At the Olympus Coliseum, Aqua’s face turned bright as she stared at Zack Fair. “A d-date?” she repeated.

“Yep! What do you say?” He grinned widely at her.

“I . . . uh . . . well . . .”

And Vanitas appeared out of nowhere, a scowl on his face. “Who’s this?” he demanded gruffly, arms crossed over his chest in a distinct I-am-not-amused stance.

“Zack Fair, hero in training!” He held out his hand.

Vanitas didn’t take it. “Pretty manly name for such a girly man,” he sneered. “Why are you talking to this bozo, Aqua?”

Zack blinked, shocked. “Hey, I-”

He cut himself off when Vanitas very casually put his arm around a stunned Aqua’s waist.

“Oh,” Zack said, “is he your . . .?”

“Yes,” Vanitas said, quickly casting a Silence spell on Aqua to stop her from telling him the truth.

“Oh, I’m really sorry, I didn’t know. I’ll be going now!”

Only once Zack ran off did Vanitas lift his spell. Aqua immediately turned on him, spitting, “What was that for?”

“He’s too old for you,” Vanitas said.

“He’s the same age!”

Vanitas shrugged. “Too lame, then?”

Aqua growled, stomping off. Vanitas watched her go, knowing that by the end of today, she would forgive him.

He teleported a small distance away, appearing in front of a pacing Ven. “Chased him off,” he said to his other half.

“And I made sure Terra saw him asking her out. Maybe now he’ll stop procrastinating . . .” Ven stopped pacing. “We’re going to get those two together if it kills me!”

Vanitas smirked, and then the two boys communed in whispers as they planned the next stage of their scheme.

* * *

Everyone starts with innocence. The vast majority of people also start off good. It takes a special, very unique individual to begin life as evil.

And as it turned out, Xehanort was _not_ one of those people.

Being as strong in magic as he was, his memory left him quickly, leaving him without a keyblade, without his vast stores of schemes, or even the knowledge of why he had them in the first place. The Youth spell rewound his life, finally hitting Play at a point where he was close to Ven in age. It was an age where he had still been in training with Eraqus, where keyblades were used to help, not harm.

It was an age before power and knowledge of the Keyblade War had poisoned his mind.

He wandered the worlds aimlessly, until he came across one under siege by a dragon. There, a man – a prince he soon discovered – gave him a sword and asked for his assistance. Having nothing better to do, he accepted. Together, he and the prince took down the dragon – who turned out to actually be a sorceress – and rescued the princess the sorceress had enchanted. Afterwards, the prince bestowed upon him a knighthood and offered him a place in his court.

Xehanort refused.

He continued to wander, helping out when it was required of him, giving advice to those who asked. Eventually, he became renowned throughout many worlds for his quiet wisdom and great power. Word eventually reached Eraqus, who sought his old friend out. Eraqus, having learned from Vanitas what the older Xehanort had been up to, did not offer to cure Xehanort, but instead offered him a home.

Xehanort refused.

He continued his nomadic lifestyle, content. His restlessness, his need to see and know everything, drove him onwards, sending him from world to world, from town to town. And each one, he touched in his own way.

In another time, in another universe, Xehanort’s power, his intelligence, his determination and his ambition had made him the ultimate evil.

But if Xehanort had the potential to be that, then he must have also had the potential to be the ultimate _good_.

* * *

And so life went on. The apprentices trained, Eraqus watched over them, and Xehanort continued to roam. The initial hoopla over the Fountain of Youth died until it became nothing more than an interesting side-fact in reports.

Of course, the story did not end there. There are still many questions to be asked: Did Terra pass the Mastery Exam? Did Ven ever discover Vanitas was his other half? Did Sora, Riku and Kairi still get their keyblades? And most importantly, did Terra finally ask Aqua out, and were Ven and Vanitas spying on him when he did?

There are many questions to be asked, but does the answer really matter? For regardless of whether or not Terra became a Master, or Ven and Vanitas became one, there was one thing that always remained certain:

They were happy.

Even Xehanort.


End file.
